In the Path of Bullets
by WolfButler
Summary: It's happening again. A theatre show, dinner at a posh restaurant...followed by arguments,explosions,car chases and hostage situations.When will the Fowls learn that there's no such thing as a quiet night out?It's a good job they've got Butlers around...
1. Dinner and a Show

**Hellar There!**

**I'm back with another one :) As usual when I start posting I've read and edited the chapters about 9 times each. This means whatever I put in that I thought was good to begin with has started to sound odd so I'm wondering whether it is. Good or Odd that is. Like saying 'wardrobe' until the word loses it's meaning entirely. Go on. Try it.**

**Anyway, enough of the blethering on.**

**Like I've said before, if you're going to read on, expect some Badass Butler-ness, general battering, some swearing, violence etc and the view of the side of the Butlers when they're not stuck 'Sir and M'am' ing the Fowls.**

**Here we go again - onwards!**

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><p><em><strong>CHAPTER 1 - Dinner and a Show<strong>_

He gritted his teeth against the pain, steering his young charge to the Bentley with his good arm.

Contrary to popular believe, Butlers actually _could _feel discomfort of all forms. They just have pain thresholds higher than your average skyscraper.

The crowd were practically stampeding, screaming and shouting, ducking at any noise louder than themselves. Butler shoved quite a few of them away - some a little too roughly, but he didn't have time to care about anyone other than his charges.

Whoever had taken the shot knew what they were doing. They had shot from a position that should have made the bullet nigh-on impossible to stop without causing the bodyguard a fatal injury, but he was not the youngest graduate from Madame Ko's Academy for nothing.

As it was, he had seen the glint of metal in the overhead balcony before the shot was fired and stepped into the bullet's path without a second of hesitation, pushing Artemis to one side before attempting to avoid the bullet himself. Luckily for young Master Artemis, for even a moment's contemplation could have meant the end for him.

_Still_, Butler berated himself. _Should have spotted it quicker, then maybe you could've taken it in the vest._

The angle of the shot and the way he was standing before it meant that although he span out of the way, the bullet had still rather more than _grazed_ his gun arm. Annoyingly, this then meant he couldn't return fire as quickly as he had wanted. By the time he had drawn his weapon the shadowy figure in the upper balcony of the theatre was gone.

He kept his Sig Sauer trained on the shadowy movements, but likely the sniper had escaped through one of the many un-blueprinted corridors he and his uncle themselves had clocked and used during their stakeout trips to the theatre.

The crowd poured out through the fire-exit like beads from a bottle and Butler planted himself firmly behind the little family, like a rock jutting from a river, keeping them in a small eddy of calm.

Butler kept an eye on the windows of the various dressing rooms in case the gunman would take advantage of the crowd and try to get in another shot, but only surprised, half make-upped faces appeared at the glass. Alarms wailed piercingly and the sprinklers showered anyone unfortunate enough to be stood under them within in a 2 meter radius. But the one at the door was broken and the group stepped out into the night still dry.

Butler turned his attention to anyone he deemed suspicious in the crowd, trying not to show any discomfort as he ushered Artemis Junior and his mother into the back of the car, closing the door behind them quickly.

Giving one last glance to try to catch sight of a vehicle that the sniper might have used to escape, he climbed into his own seat, only then allowing himself to consider his injury. There was a tapping on the glass between them and the Fowls and The Major buzzed the divider down, simultaneously pulling out of the carpark into the steady queue of traffic that was the main street.

"Was that an attack aimed at us?" questioned Mr. Fowl angrily. "How outrageously barbaric! I expect Carker would be behind it?"

The last sentence was both an out-loud pondering and a question aimed at his manservant.

"I suspect so, sir," The Major answered grimly as he buckled his seatbelt over his broad chest. There was something, Butler noted. The Major, despite being safety conscious to a possibly _excessive _scale, rarely buckled his seatbelt. The second or so it took to undo could be fatal if he needed to get out quickly. If he had clipped in, that usually meant he was prepared to engage in what was taught as _'evasive driving'_ at the Academy and usually involved the near-destruction of several low-grade vehicles by the students.

Carker was among the last three or so businessmen Artemis Senior had forcibly, temporarily retired. Why? He had been on the list. The list of competition that needed to be removed. And why not when he had the power to do so? Or at least that's what he had said to convince the Butlers to go along with him. Still, neither were particularly happy to comply. But they were Butlers. So they said nothing.

Normally, Artemis would order a program to be made. Something to hack into the bank accounts and disturb the enemies finances enough to put them off for a while. But this time...The Major mentally ran through the plot that had involved himself and his nephew infiltrating the company as new bodyguards for the billionaire. It was never a good thing to announce your invincibility and then have two of your three bodyguards aim their guns at_ you_ instead of your enemy. Carker was forced to transfer a large chunk of his capital into Fowl's account, only to then be taken into custody for one of his various past crimes. That had left him with one hell of a grudge to settle, not to mention his only loyal bodyguard coming off worse in a fight he had boasted he could win blindfolded. The Major smirked slightly at that one. Nevertheless, both the Fowl bodyguards had been on edge since Carker's lawyer had overturned the sentence. The man was on the loose, looking for revenge. Some sort of repayment. And there was no guarantee he would take it in regular currency. _Pound of flesh_, seemed more likely. Now all that seemed as though it could be coming to fruition.

"Well, he's not going to ruin our evening out, is he? No. We'll show him what the Fowls are made of," Artemis Senior was still talking, mostly to himself, seen as though no-one was particularly paying attention.

His wife was trying to sooth his son who was protesting that he did not need mollycoddling. His manservant was sneaking swift glances at his own nephew when he thought no-one was looking. He didn't want to look concerned but needed to make sure the wound was superficial enough for his subordinate to continue guarding the Fowls for the rest of the evening. Through the hand clamped over the rip in his suit, the bullet wound was beginning to bleed quite profusely.

Butler stared dead-ahead, checking the road for hazards.

"Sir," The Major said hesitantly. "Given the circumstances, I'd suggest returning to the Manor, or at least changing our plans somewhat..."

"Which is _exactly_ what Carker would expect," Artemis Senior countered.

The Major would have rolled his eyes if it wouldn't have compromised his vision. Sometimes, no scratch that, _most of the time_, he wished his charge would just _shut up_ and let him do his job. But, as Madame Ko had taught him, principles rarely listened.

Besides, he had long since given up hoping that Artemis would return to being the old Artemis he knew. The constant quest for fame and fortune had changed his charge, seemingly irreversibly. It had dulled the man's senses, twisted his morals, affected all those close to him. The Major sometimes hoped that Angeline would step up and slap her husband around the face - at least then he could claim that Artemis had ordered him to stay out of their arguments ever since he had separated them forcibly after the first one.

"Timmy, dear," Angeline started tentatively. "The Major is right. Do you not think that Butler requires some medical attention?"

Her husband looked at her in mild confusion until he realised what she was talking about. Likely he hadn't even noticed that the shot had hit.

"Well?" he demanded.

"I assure you he will be fine, sir. However, thank-you for the concern, m'am," The Major said, without consulting said _'he'_.

Artemis turned to his wife and they started up a bout of petty squabbling over his interest in the health of his staff, or rather lack of. The Major sighed, but it gave him enough of a distraction to_ actually _ask his nephew how he was feeling.

"If you get blood on the upholstery, _you_ will be the one cleaning it off," he grunted at the younger Butler, who had given up on holding the blood in by hand and was searching the glove box for a first aid kit.

"There's a kit in the boot if you can wait," he added handing him a giant sized handkerchief.

"Yep. Just get us to the restaurant," Butler answered, applying pressure to the rip in his suit. He supposed he was lucky the bullet hadn't actually made proper contact. At least, that is to say, it hadn't actually entered his muscle and stuck in there, so he didn't have to worry about shattered bones or completely torn muscles. For someone like him, it was simply a flesh wound.

_Count your blessings_, Madam Ko would say. _Because there won't be many._

Although just because the lump of metal was currently embedded into the back of a chair in the theatre and not his arm, didn't mean that it hadn't left one hell of a messy trail in its wake.

He folded the piece of material and clamped his hand over it, almost groaning. Not at the pain. He was used to that. Rather instead, at the spattering of red that had found itself onto the cream-leather seat. _Typical._ He wouldn't just have to clean up that little bit either; his uncle would take any excuse to force him to clean the entire interior of his precious car. But that was a problem for later. Meanwhile, how he was going to find a slot to sort this out whilst still guard Artemis he didn't know.

The Major flicked his eyes over every so often but his nephew was determined to show no weakness. Pulling into the restaurant car-park The Major popped the boot's security lock and undid his seatbelt.

"On the left. Get it quickly. Don't..."

"Make any fuss. I know," Butler muttered, already halfway out the car.

Once inside, they had the elevator to themselves. Not that anyone else would've fitted comfortably, even if they had been stupid enough to risk being in such a cramped vicinity with two edgy Butlers. Little Artemis kept looking at his bodyguard who only twitched his mouth in a reassuring half-smile and kept his hand on the gun in his waistband, just in case anyone tried to attack them when the doors opened. It was well known in the bodyguarding world that elevators were a nightmare. Who knew what was on the other side of those doors before they opened? And how was anyone supposed to check _every_ floor before their charges picked one?

Thankfully, when the doors opened, the only assault they received was the rapid welcoming of the woman greeting people onto the restaurant floor, where they were seated in the private booth table - as requested.

Also thankfully, Artemis Junior decided he was in need of the rest room, which gave his bodyguard the ideal opportunity to patch up his arm with the medical kit he had swiped from the Bentley's boot. Checking the cubicles were all empty before Artemis chose one, he shrugged off his jacket.

_Another one ruined,_ he thought with a sigh, running his thumb over the frayed and bloodied sleeve. And since the Fowls liked him and The Major to look as identical as possible, that would mean shelling out for _two _new jackets. _You wreck, you replace. _Unfortunately, The Major never seemed to be the one who got shot, caught in explosions, or ripped a massive hole in the armpit of an expensive dinner jacket fighting off an idiotic attacker. The elder put it down to experience. The younger taunted him that it was because he was slower. Then again, The Major had kept _his _Artemis alive for over three decades so far and taken many a hit in that time. Butler's charge wasn't even a third of that, yet somehow he seemed to be catching up injury-wise.

Deciding that taking off his shoulder holster to be able to remove his shirt would be too much hassle, he ripped the sleeve off at the top. Besides, the shirt had already been ruined; the sticky spread of blood had made sure of that. He peeled the material away from the skin and used the mirror to get a good look at the wound. It wasn't _gaping_, but the horizontal chunk of missing flesh wasn't exactly pretty, either. And it'd probably benefit from a few stitches, if he was honest.

_No time for that now _- even if he could reach such an awkward place to stitch.

He had got rid of some of the split blood with help from a few alcohol wipes when Artemis emerged.

"How serious is your wound?" he asked, washing his hands.

"I think I'll live, young sir," Butler said, pinning an extra patch over the seeping injury and securing it with a torn off piece of his shirt and some duck-tape rather than the surgical kind, hoping the thick, waterproof layer would keep the blood from showing anymore than it already had done on his dark suit jacket. He ripped it off messily with his teeth and sealed it tight. That was going to sting like a bitch when he tore it off later. Now there was something Juliet would find hilarious. _Bullets? No problem. Hairy arms given a waxing by duck-tape? Ouchie._

"I hoped the distraction of my visit to the rest room would allow you enough time to cleanse it."

"Plenty of time, thank-you, young master," Butler wasn't that surprised by this revelation. Although his father seemed oblivious to most things, the budding genius never missed a trick and was also a little more likely to take time to see to the welfare of his staff, even if it was probably only to settle his mind no-one could attack him.

Butler quickly wiped down the sink, removing any traces of red - and hopefully most of his DNA - before packing away the kit and remainder of his shirt sleeve into one of his enormous pockets.

"Ready to proceed?" Artemis Junior had been unusually patient during the minute or so that it had taken his bodyguard to do this.

"Of course, sir," Butler said opening the door and checking it was safe before letting his charge lead the way back into the bustling restaurant.

* * *

><p>Dinner, The Major decided, was the only good thing about this restaurant. The very <em>bad<em> thing, was the fact that it was on the top floor of a six story building. And the worst? If Carker had known they had been at the theatre, he would likely know they would be at the restaurant. Of course, The Major wasn't so stupid that he hadn't set up five other decoys, but someone might have followed them, or else teams could be set up at any number of the possible restaurants. And even if they hadn't anticipated them escaping the theatre, it wouldn't take such a powerful, not to mention pissed off, man like Carker long to get a team together. Artemis Fowl may have taking a large chunk out of his opponent, but James Carker was far from bankrupt.

The Butlers ate quickly, uneasily scanning the crowds. There was a certain air of frostiness between the two older Fowls that their bodyguards didn't have time to worry about. Artemis worried though. Although _worried _was a rather dramatic term._ Concerned, _was a more appropriate description of his emotions. He knew well that his parents often differed in their opinions and now his mother was trying to convince his father to allow Butler to seek medical attention, which he would likely refuse anyway, whilst his father insisted they should carry on their evening undisturbed.

"Would you like another glass of wine, Angeline?" Artemis Senior asked.

"No thank-you," Angeline sniffed. "I _would like_ to return home."

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" Mr. Fowl laughed, emotions loosened by the alcohol. He seemed almost _disappointed_ when no-one joined in. Not even The Major cracked a polite smile. Too preoccupied with the hissing noise he was certain he could hear. He was convinced he could hear the almost none-existent sound once the younger Butler started discreetly cocking his head to either side, trying to find the source.

"Because, Artemis, if it has escaped your addled notice, one of our bodyguards has been shot whilst protecting ourselves from an attack, which is likely to occur again this very evening," she snapped at him.

_Uh-oh. Full name terms._

"Angeline, darling, please stop fretting so..."

"Don't _Angeline-darling_ me. I am _not_ an imbecile! I have been in this family long enough to know the risks," she said furiously.

"Well," Mr. Fowl said, taken aback. "It's hardly my fault some mad-man tried to kill us."

Mrs. Fowl laughed without any mirth.

"How can you possibly say that? Of course it's your fault. You and your _business deals_," she told him, the last two words emphasised with a venom that revealed _exactly_ how she felt about her husband's 'work'.

"Considering what I sacrifice for this family I think you're being incredibly unreasonable!"

People were starting to stare as the Fowls' voices rose. Butler frowned. All this noise wasn't helping him to find the source of the hissing. It was more than just background noise from a faulty speaker. It was similar to a slowly deflating balloon. He sniffed uncertainly. A horribly familiar smell was wafting through the air propelled by giant fans attached to the ceiling.

_Oh shit._

His muscles tensed automatically and he flicked his head round rapidly, searching for the leak.

"I think what you sacrifice most _is_ this family!" Angeline's eyes flashed angrily. Little Artemis slumped slightly in his seat - embarrassed, as well as upset at his parent's arguing.

"Well," Mr. Fowl said again, standing up with a jerk and knocking the table. Red wine sloshed over the pristine white tablecloth.

"Well _what_, Timmy? You should be ashamed of yourself! Putting your family in danger like this!" she turned to her son. "Come on Arty, we're leaving."

Both Butlers knew the drill for any separation. They stayed with their own respective charges and whomever of her family Mrs. Fowl ended up with, was then the responsibility of that bodyguard. If Juliet one day earned her blue- diamond tattoo it would be easier in the future, not that either of the male Butlers were hoping she would pick such a dangerous and demanding career.

Angeline started to leave the table, taking her son by the hand. Butler got to his feet. He could definitely smell something very unwelcome now. He tried to catch his uncle's eye, signing a quick 'G' in British Sign Language and hoping he'd get the message. He did. He'd already realised himself.

"Well I..." Artemis Senior drew himself to his full height, facing his wife's back and calling after her.

"Quiet!"

The single word stunned the man into silence, especially considering who it came from. The Major did not seem at all apologetic as he too got to his feet behind his charge, ready to move.

A waiter walked past, casually flicking a lighter, poised to ignite a novelty sparkler.

"Do you mind?" Artemis Senior asked, shocked. Then he paused, frowning. "Can anyone else smell ga..."

He was suddenly knocked to the floor by his bodyguard, toppling chairs and landing with an _'oof'_ as he hit the carpet.

Butler crossed the few steps between himself and his own charge in under half a second and expertly knocked both of the remaining Fowls to the ground, the pair of them landing with a gentle flop and gasping the air back into their lungs as he rolled them under a table.

_**KA-BOOM**_, is possibly an over-used cartoon explosion noise, although that, accompanied by the following roaring noise, was _exactly_ what happened next.

The gas that had been hissing slowly from the air-vents exploded with contact with the sparkler. The top three feet of the room became a roiling inferno of blistering heat. The windows shattered outwards in the blast, deadly shards tumbling to the carpark below. Anything flammable burst into flames, flickering, blinding hotness taking the place of the electric lighting, which went out with an electrostatic bang.

The gas itself lasted hardly more than a second or so of fuel for the fire before the blaze followed the path it had taken, retreating down the vents.

Explosions echoed through the entire building.

One of the ceiling fans fell in a deadly twirl of blades, landing on a table with a deafening crash. This was swiftly followed by one of the fake-wood beams that had been decoratively placed in order to make the room seem more antique and homely. A difficult task for a top-floor restaurant.

There was utter silence but for the licking of the flames.

And then the screaming started.

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><p><strong>Admission to make: Since all of my fic idas tend to mish-mash together until I straighten them out into separate ones there may be some slight overlaps i.e. sentences that appear in my other fics. I think there's one or two in this chappie. I'll try to keep them to the minimum, but only those of you that have read the others and are pretty observant will notice I reckon.<strong>

**Anyhoo. Other than that, it's a brand new story for you guys. And yes, I must always shoot Butler within the first three chapters, usually in the arms. He's lucky he has any limbs left really. Sorry bub. I only promise not to kill them. Because of course, it is a well known fact that Butlers _cannot_ be killed.**

**I've also realised that I continually write within the same sort of time-era. Meaning that they must all be incredibly quick healers having one hell of a few years. Nevermind. Let's go with it :)**

**Don't expect every day updates with this one. I'll try for at the very least once a week in between assignments and other stuff that drags me away from exercising my imagination :)**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O **


	2. Flashbacks and Fires

**Thanks to:**

*** HolidayBoredom ***

*** Alchemechanist ***

*** KKCopper ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** Beckett Simpleton ***

**For the awesome first reviews. You guys seem to be some of my returning reviewers so I'm glad to see you back. Hope this lives up to the praise.**

**I think I didn't put in a disclaimer yet... bad Wolfy. Um - Eoin Colfer created The Fowls and The Butlers. I'd love to claim them as my own but... as you know, they're not. I'm only stuck making up baddies for the latter of the two families to decimate. Hopefully anyway.**

**Onwards!**

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 2 - Flashbacks and Fires<strong>

_**Flashback**_

_"You see, Artemis," Carker drawled. "This is where we differ."_

_"First name terms, James? Really?"_

_"If you prefer I can call you Fowl."_

_"Either or, James. But please, continue with your monologue. I am most intrigued as to where you are going with this."_

_It occurred to Carker that the man was still unreasonably cocky. Which was just plain stupid, considering that his security men were out of the picture and Carker himself was stood there with three of the best bodyguards in the business. Two of them were Blue Diamonds for heavens sake! And both of them Butlers to boot. They were his newbies, yet to fully learn the ropes, perhaps, but certainly proving their worth so far. For starters, they had made the quick fight with Fowl's bodyguards look practically** choreographed**. They hadn't even drawn blood. Meaning no cleaning bill and no bodies. He was going to have to give them a raise. And then, of course, there was Drake. The man had been by his side since his birth and didn't need a 'sissy diamond' on his shoulder to prove his worth. Yes, Drake hadn't got on quite as well with the new pair as he had hoped, but after the original scuffle he was sure they'd learn to like eachother. They were just like dogs really. They just had to work out a hierarchy and learn to get along as a pack and they'd be fine. Carker glanced at them for a second. _

_**No, not dogs,** he decided. **Wolves.**_

_His very own wolf-pack. With these guys on his side, no-one could stop him now. __James wondered briefly where Fowl's own infamous Butler was. The Colonel, or something along those lines. Perhaps he had retired. He certainly wasn't here watching Fowl's back now. Pity really, Carker was sure Drake would love an opportunity to put an opposing blue-diamond to shame. Especial one with a reputation like that one._

_"You see it's like this," he continued aloud. "I'm in charge here and you are a worthless nothing. Your life is not important to me. So please, write your, ah... **donation**, on the cheque, I'd love to see what value **you** put to it."_

_Fowl oddly smirked and scrawled something that looked like a telephone number on the piece of paper. He paused after he had written the last digit._

_James looked at the number and raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected to get to such a reasonable amount so quickly. Perhaps the lack of bodyguards had affected him more than he made out._

_"Does this secure my safety, or do you want more?"_

_"Add another zero on the end and I will consider letting you walk yourself out of here," Carker pushed his luck. No, wait. That wasn't the right phrase. He didn't need to push anything. It was a good feeling._

_"And why should I do that?" Artemis asked, placing the pen down on the desk and standing up. The three bodyguards around Carker tensed up as a precaution._

_"Because, my dear Artemis, perhaps in the business world we are well matched. But here? Here you are alone. You are in my domain. You are under my control. Here, Artemis Fowl - I. Am. **Invincible**."_

_Artemis smirked. "Is that so James **Carker**? Is that so indeed? Major, Would you care to show **dear** James who's really in control here?"_

_Carker looked around. That was the name. **The Major**. Fowl's personal guard. Where the hell was he hiding? Behind the curtain? Behind the door? Behind...him._

_Carker froze as a cold tube of metal was pushed into the back of his neck._

_"Certainly, sir," The Major rumbled._

_Drake swore, but before he could even draw his gun, the younger Butler had his own Sig Sauer out and against his temple._

_"Don't move," he growled._

_Drake and Carker weighed up their options..._

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><p><strong>Present<strong>

The first thing Butler was aware of, was the fact that his charge was not immediately in front of him. Just after that thought, came the revelation that he was being slowly crushed by something large and heavy. He tried to wriggle forward, pushing himself up press-up style, but the ceiling beam was flattening him and he was stuck solid.

"Butler!" the voice seemed far to child-like and anxious to be coming from his principle. But there he was, on his hands and knees, staring with worried eyes at his trapped manservant.

"Yes, Master Artemis?" Butler tried a smile, but it came out as more of a grimace.

Currently, the only thing saving his ribs was his Kevlar vest. And that really wasn't designed for this sort of thing. Realising _exactly_ where the beam had landed, other than on himself, he suddenly hoped his uncle and Artemis Senior had not been caught up in anything else on the other side of this makeshift barrier.

"Are you alright? Are you trapped?"

There was another crash as something else fell and some more screaming rent the air. The restaurant was a mess. Fire was licking its way up the walls, biting into anything flammable, the oxygen pouring in from the broken windows ensuring it burned strongly.

_At least it isn't too windy,_ Butler thought.

Mrs. Fowl crawled closer under the table, snagging her dress on some debris and repeating Artemis's questions. Butler considered them.

Was he hurt? Not considerably. Was he stuck? Oh most definitely yes.

"Yes," he answered. "To both questions."

"Oh."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say. There was no way the two slight Fowls could help him and if he was really trapped then, technically, so were they, since heading off without him in this sort of situation was almost as dangerous as staying put.

A sheet of flaming wallpaper fluttered to the carpet, alcohol-soaked by many split beverages, igniting it with a vengeance.

_Oh great. Just brilliant. Not only am I stuck under a poxy fake support I'm going to be roasted to death. Ah well. It might be quicker than being crushed._

He coughed slightly, choking on the smoke. There was only one other way. If he could get out, then he'd meet up with the pair as soon as possible. If not, they were on their own. Which meant them heading out into a possibly sniper-watched world. Alone.

_If I don't die, Uncle is going to __**kill**__ me._

"Listen. You need to get yourselves out. Use..."

"The stairs, not the elevator, yes," Angeline cut in. "Where do you want us to go?"

Butler wriggled a hand into his jacket, pulling out his set of the Bentley keys, thankful that he could just about reach his inside pocket. "Can you drive at all?"

"Yes," Angeline took them, clamping the set in her slender fingers. Butler hoped she'd keep it that way. He didn't need anything else for his uncle to bollock him for.

"Then if neither I nor your husband or The Major join you before anything else happens, drive yourself home. If you don't feel comfortable driving all that way then just get as far away from here as you can."

'_Anything else'_ being a wide range of un-pleasantries, the woman nodded determinedly. The smoke was growing thicker by the second, clinging to their throats and clothes as it roiled around them. People were piling towards the stairs, screaming and toppling tables as they went. It was almost completely dark. Only the dim glow of emergency lights and the orange stain of firelight lit up their way as they went. The fire crept towards the exit. There wasn't time to be sitting around.

"Go. Quickly," Butler shooed them, re-doubling his efforts to get out from under the beam.

"What about you?" Artemis asked as his mother dragged him by the arm out from under the shelter of the table.

"I'll get myself out of here and meet you downstairs," Butler said calmly. It wasn't a complete lie. That _was_ Plan A.

* * *

><p>The Major had seen the beam fall, shielding Artemis with his body as debris ripped away from the ceiling, completely sealing off the other half of the room with chunks of rubble. It was a wonder some serious structural damage hadn't been caused and they weren't currently freefalling six stories to their deaths or crushed. He had been more fortunate than his nephew, in that he wasn't currently pinned. However, he was, in the same amount of seriousness, stuck. On the side of the restaurant with no exits. With around twenty others. And his charge. He could only hope the other three had already escaped.<p>

The Major surveyed the thing blocking their way. Climbing it would be possible for him, but not for Artemis. The man would likely get to the top, attempt to squeeze through the tiny gap that smoke was currently pouring through thickly and then fall off the other side and break his legs/neck/skull etc. No. Climbing was not an option. Moving the debris? Equally not possible. Well, it was _possible_. Of course he could move the chunks of concrete, but it could cause further collapses which could in turn result in broken legs/necks/skulls etc... No. He had to think of something else.

People started waving from the blown-out windows and the bodyguard vaguely wondered whether they were stupid enough to jump.

"What on earth was that?" Mr. Fowl groaned rolling onto his back and sitting up.

"That, sir," said The Major, grimly. "Was a gas explosion."

"Aimed to kill me, I presume."

"Most probably, sir."

"Carker?"

"Most probably, sir," The Major repeated.

Mr. Fowl ran a hand over his face. "Oh lord, Angeline was right. I shouldn't have..."

"No time for that now," The Major hauled him to his feet. Smoke was clouding the air, half-broken sprinklers on the less-damaged parts of the ceiling trying in vain to quell the rising flames. "We need to get out."

His charge then noticed the barrier separating them from the exit.

"Where are the others? Do you think they've escaped?" Artemis choked through the fouled air.

"Hopefully."

"Hopefully? Major - my wife and child are on the other side of that... _thing_!"

"As is a member of my family, sir. Would you rather I lied to you?" The Major asked coolly, moving a tilted table out of the way with a single flip of his massive hands. He'd come up with another solution. If they moved fast enough it would work.

"I didn't think... I apologise..." Artemis coughed again, his hair flattened from its usual swept back neatness over his face by a sprinkler jet. The Major looked at him and was unexpectedly transported back to the memory of Artemis's first swimming lesson. The panic in his eyes was of a similar level and suddenly he looked very like the small, frightened boy he had once been.

"Don't. Just keep moving."

Having memorised the blueprints and taken several stake-out trips to this particular restaurant he knew that the kitchen had two doors, one for plates coming in, the other for plates going out. If he was right, the door would be on the other side of the wreckage. The problem? The flames licking the doorway. It would have to be now or never.

"Follow me, stay close and if I drop to the floor, do the same, alright? Artemis - alright?" The Major span his charge away from watching the frantic people at the windows.

"Ah... yes. Of course."

The man was clearly going into shock. The Major didn't have time for this. A waiter seemed to be having the same idea as the bodyguard, shouting to the desperate people and gesturing them to the door, he yelled at them to follow him. People started rushing towards the escape. Now it would be a case of wait a few moments or risk getting crushed. No one was waiting. The Major didn't plan on doing so either.

"Concentrate. I'll get us out of this, ok? I'm sure Butler already has the others and their heading to the car. Pull yourself together, Artemis," The Major gripped his charge's shoulders, shaking him slightly out of his daze. "OK?"

It was obviously a lie, but being the thing they both hoped and having one of them voice it so confidently gave them both something to focus on.

"OK," the younger man repeated him slowly. One hand gripped his bodyguard's cuff tightly and The Major saw another flicker of the old Artemis. "Yes. Let's go."

The Major let go of his charge's shoulders and strode purposefully towards the crowd. It wasn't going to be a problem to get through them. The burning kitchen? Possibly a different story.

Artemis forced down the panic in his throat as they made their way across the chaos. He took a deep breath of the smoke-polluted air and followed. Seemingly _directly _into the heart of the fire.

* * *

><p>The waiter slid through the tunnel of flames and into the other half of the restaurant. Or rather, what was left of the restaurant. His boss was going to go <em>insane<em>. He was just about to run for the stairs when he heard a curse that sounded more irritated than distressed.

"...ck's sake," muttered the voice.

He cast around for the owner until he saw a burly looking guy apparently trying to pull himself out from under the beam. He had almost made it. But at the rate the flames were approaching, _almost _wasn't going to be enough.

The waiter paused. He would be risking his own life if he turned back now. Cursing his morals he grabbed a broken table leg and ran over.

* * *

><p>Angeline stumbled slightly in her heels but even lack of <em>sensible<em> shoes, was better than lack of shoes at all in the debris littered stairwell of the burning building. She kept a tight grip on her son's hand as they ran down the seemingly endless flights of stairs, almost carried by the crowd. If she lost her grip on him now, there would be no turning back to find him.

"It's OK, Arty. We'll be OK," she kept repeating, more to reassure herself than the boy. Others thundered past her and she suddenly appreciated how much a Butler's presence deterred people from crashing into them. Manners were apparently not an essential during near-death experiences.

The emergency lights in the stairway succumbed to melted wires and they too went out with yet another bang, causing, if possible, even more panic.

They finally reached the ground floor, two small figures in the swarm pouring into the night. For a second they were completely disoriented and again Angeline found herself wishing for a higher up pair of eyes.

"Mother, I think I know where the car is. We appear to have exited on the opposite side of the building. Therefore..." Little Artemis spun around looking for any sort of landmark. "Can you lift me, Mother?"

Angeline wasn't so sure she could, but eventually she managed to hoist her son atop of a nearby bin. He seemed so heavy and she tried to remember the last time she had picked him up. Four years ago? Five? Six? He was growing up fast and she wasn't sure she liked it.

Aware of the fact that his bodyguard would never have allowed him to make himself such an obvious sniper-target in the middle of a crisis, Artemis peered hurriedly into the darkness, finally recognising the bend of the road and trying to remember how it lead to the carpark.

"We need to turn left," he decided, sliding off the lid bin with wrinkle of disgust at the smell.

"Right, then we need to hurry," Angeline said, trying to fight their way through the mill of people. They broke through a gap and into the open, Artemis suddenly realising that this was as risky as a pair of gazelle leaving the herd when there was a pride of hunting lions nearby. Any one of the parked cars could hide an ambush and they had no idea what they should do to avoid it.

The pair continued to walk at a fast pace until the Bentley's blessed silver shape could be seen, shining out amongst the other vehicles. Taking a second or two to work out how the key-fob worked, they clambered into the back, slamming and locking the door behind them and sitting in complete darkness, calming their breathing. The familiar scent of the Bentley's interior filled their nostrils and settled their nerves somewhat. It was common knowledge that The Major prized the near-invincibility of the car. It was why they used it more often than any of the hundred or so other vehicles they owned. And if he was almost certain it was entirely safe, they felt so to.

Angeline still thought nervously about the bomb checks the Butlers would conduct nearly every time they got into the car. Should she have looked underneath it, or would that have only wasted time? And what exactly should she be looking for anyway? It wasn't as though there would be a box attached with the word 'BOMB' printed helpfully on its surface. She was afraid to say that she had little idea of what the underside of the Bentley was _supposed_ to look like anyway. Her son broke her out of her anxious thoughts.

"Do you think Butler will be OK?" Artemis asked, hating how childish he sounded.

"I don't know darling," Angeline hugged her son close. "But Butler is a tough man, I'm sure if anyone can get out, he can."

"And Father? And The Major? Do you suppose they've already escaped?" he asked, guilty that his own father's safety had leapt into his thoughts a good few seconds _after_ his bodyguard's.

_Simply because when you last saw Butler he was trapped under debris and in grave danger,_ Artemis justified to himself. _Not because Butler is closer than any other male family member to you._

"I expect they'll be meeting us at any moment," his mother said, but they both knew it was a lie.

And so they were both very surprised when a sharp knock came at the window.

"Oh! See? They're here already," she leant over to pull the lock on the door and let them in.

Then she paused. As much as it pained her to admit it, it really hadn't looked as though Butler would escape so quickly... or at all. She banished the thought, moving onto the next possibility.

_Doesn't The Major already have a set of keys?_

She peered through the tinted glass, hoping to at least see _one_ of the Butlers, if not her husband.

But the face pressed against the glass to counteract the privacy tint was _not_ any they had been hoping to see.

Thankfully, the doors were still locked and so when the stranger tried the handle, nothing happened. But, having caught sight of his prey in the car the man took out a gun and fired at point blank range at the window.

Angeline screamed in fright, but the bullet-proof glass ricocheted the bullet directly back at him. He yelled a swearword, clutching his arm. Another man, on the other side of the car, shouted at him in annoyance, but learnt from his associate's lesson and stood further back to try the same.

"Right! Hold on Artemis," Angeline clambered to the front of the car, thankful that the window-barrier between the driver and passenger compartment was still down as she squeezed through the gap easily.

More bullets. The Major would _not_ be happy about that. At this rate the Bentley was going to need a full refurbishment. She slid into the chair, fumbling for the lever and pulled it at least a metre closer to the pedals, as far forward as it would go. She still felt ridiculously small in the giant car, only just peeking over the steering wheel as she started the engine with shaking hands.

The car leapt into life reliably, despite not being handled by its usual driver. Their attackers redoubled their efforts, firing at the tyres. Thankfully they were specifically designed to come away in chunks rather than explode, so the car would be still drivable... for now.

Right. So... handbrake? Clutch? She tried desperately to remember what the driving instructor her father had paid a small fortune for had told her. Something about releasing the clutch smoothly? She had stalled nine times out of ten in the past and was fairly certain, when she thought about it, that Daddy had paid the examiner to pass her...

Cockpit drill. Lights. She fiddled with the lever at the side of the wheel until the headlights came on, glaring brightly. OK now. Mirrors? This car _had_ a rear-view mirror, but all it showed was the back seat. Where she would prefer to be sat right now. With The Major or Butler doing the driving. She didn't have time to work out how to move the wing-mirrors either. It was lucky the Bentley wasn't blocked in at the front, because reversing wasn't one of her strong points either...

She clipped in her belt and Artemis crawled through and sat on the passenger seat, mindful of avoiding the small stain of blood from his Butler's arm before he too secured himself into the seat.

"Mother, can you drive this car?" he asked nervously.

"Well... let's find out," she grimaced, wrenching it into gear and flooring the accelerator.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, because Beckett Simpleton rightly pointed out I, and the rest of the FanFic-ing world, tend to make Angeline Fowl a bit of a wuss. Well in this fic, she's not going to be :)<strong>

**All the chapters aren't quite as long as the first two but I'm working on that fact as we speak (or well... not /speak/ but you know)**

**Hope you're enjoying it so far,**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>**** O**


	3. Fowls Will Drive You Crazy

**Thanks to:**

*** 2whitie ***

*** tech17 ***

**For the reviews. You guys make me smile :)**

**Woop quick updates! Yeah and hopefully I'll get 4 and 5 up over the weekend then it'll probably slow down a bit unless I can find a slot to do final edits on the rest of the chappies.**

**WARNINGS: Bit of swearing, bit of action, bit of Butler-ness in general...**

**Anyhoo... Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 3 - Fowls Will Drive You Crazy<strong>

_**Flashback**_

"_Wha... wha... what is this?" Carker yelped._

"_Sorry, __**boss**__," The Major smirked. He may have seemed as arrogant as his real master, but inside adrenaline was coursing through his veins like electricity. The whole plan had been more than risky. And this part of it was no different. If Drake decided to stir things up, he'd have to rely on his nephew to either take him down or take him out and he'd prefer not to be covered in the remnants of whatever brains Drake had in his thick skull._

_He'd chosen to take Carker, rather than his 'opposite number', so to speak, mostly for effect. That, and the fact that Drake, a similar age to himself, had taken an immediate and distinct dislike to the younger Butler. Perhaps threatened by him. Worried that the boss he had been so faithful to for the whole of the man's life would replace him with a younger model, perhaps. He had attempted to assert his authority over him in a mock-sparring match that had shifted to a more serious fight. At least until The Major had intervened. That had ended up with the younger Butler being punched full in the face, a fact he was seriously peeved with. 'You could have grabbed __**him**__,' he had grumped. 'It's better for our cover that we didn't gang up on him,' The Major had retorted. Still, both men did not get along __**at all**__ and it gave Butler no small pleasure to threaten his life. Besides, it was a small repayment for the face-punch incident on The Major's behalf to allow his nephew take Drake on fairly._

"_Perhaps you should have upped their wages," Artemis mused. "Then maybe they would have turned on me instead of you."_

_The Major decided that that was a jibe at Carker, rather than at himself and tried not to be insulted by his true boss's comment. There was not a snowball's chance in hell he would ever turn on Artemis. His nephew too, would remain entirely faithful to the Fowls. It was in their blood. Butlers and Fowls were linked irrevocably. No exchange of money could change that. The Major could honestly say he would guard Artemis with or without his wages. He had put in far too many years of hardship and effort to give up on him now._

_To his left, things were heating up. Drake tried to go for his gun and Butler pushed the muzzle of his own a little harder into the man's hairline._

"_I mean it Drake," he was saying. "Don't mess with me."_

_He used stronger language than 'mess', which Mr. Fowl thought was rather unprofessional and uncalled for, but then again, it was a standoff between two men both equalling the size and weight of small rhinoceroses. He'd keep his well-groomed opinions to himself for now and perhaps mention it to The Major to pass on later._

"_You think you're Mr. Big-Bollocks now? Put that pea-shooter away and let's see whether you diamonds are as hard as you claim to be."_

"_Sounds like fun."_

"_Fun?" __Drake sneered. "__I could take you blindfolded, kid." _

"_Maybe later," Butler's lip twitched in a snarling smile. "Then I could teach you how to punch properly."_

_**Cool it, Dom,**__ The Major thought. His nephew's young blood was showing slightly. He needed to drop the macho behaviour and act like the Blue-Diamond he was._

_Drake spat at him and Butler barely refrained from paying him back for the earlier punch. Training had taught him not to react to taunts. Luckily. Had he lost concentration for even a second, Drake would have swiped the gun to the side and he would have to have gone to hand-to-hand combat. Not that he wouldn't have won, but it was** not** what they needed right now._

"_What do you want from me, Fowl?" Carker brought the attention back to himself._

"_Oh, we've slipped back to using surnames, have we? What a shame. And I thought we were getting rather pally for a moment there, James," Artemis said innocently._

"_Alright, you've had your joke. This is your show now, isn't it? I was going to let you live, Artemis. What do you plan to do with me?"_

_Carker couldn't believe this was happening. _

_**Of course,**__ he thought bitterly. __**It was all too good to be true.**_

_He should have listened to Drake. The man was rarely wrong when it came to things like this. Now they were both stood with guns at their temples at the complete mercy of traitors __**he**__ had hired. **Against** his bodyguard's own strong opinions._

"_That depends entirely on how you behave, James," Fowl told him. "Now, you can copy out my, ah, __**suggested donation**__, onto a cheque of your own if you'd like. Oh, and don't forget your own proposal. I agree with you entirely. The added zero certainly **would** be desirable. Perhaps we're not as different as you think."_

"_You bastard..." Carker muttered in disbelieve. "You complete an utter conniving __**bastard**__!"_

"_I prefer genius," Artemis smirked. "If you please."_

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

Butler had succeeded in hauling himself at least halfway under the table, out from under the beam. Now it was only his lower back and legs getting the weight. Not ideal, but at least he could still feel them. No paralysis yet and nothing felt broken either. Or at least nothing crunched when he tried to move his feet.

_Good start._

He wriggled alternately left and right. People were running past and Butler suddenly realised where from. He hadn't seen the unmistakable silhouette of his uncle yet though. That was either very _good_, and they had escaped whilst he was busy escaping, or very _bad _and they were still stuck on the other side.

Something groaned and the beam seemed to fall further.

"Oh for _f..._" Butler growled something obscene in frustration and heaved himself another half a centimetre closer to escape.

"Hey - need a hand?" someone asked.

Butler squinted through the suffocating black smoke. A slight man in a singed suit he recognised as the uniform of the waiters, was staring down at him with a concerned look on his moustachioed face.

"Could do with one," he admitted grudgingly.

The waiter waved a table leg. "If I can shove this under the beam maybe I can lever it up a bit."

Butler seriously doubted that the man would be able to do anything of the sort. But help was help and he wasn't going to refuse anything that might get him out of here and back to the Fowls.

The man jammed the wood next to Butler, pushing down on it with all his might. The beam groaned again, moving only slightly, even when the man stood one foot on the lever and pushed down with all the strength in his skinny limbs. Butler focussed his energy and dragged himself forward a few centimetres. If the beam fell again now it would certainly be the end of his career, if not his life, for the guy helping him was not of the stature required to carry the bodyguard if his legs got crushed.

"Come on mate, one more heave, right?" The man relaxed his grip on the makeshift lever, shifting further to the end. "On three?"

Butler nodded, gritting his teeth in determination.

"1...2..."

* * *

><p>The heat was intense.<p>

The adjective hardly did it justice. Artemis Fowl felt as though he was walking through hell itself. The only thing that kept him going was his grip on his bodyguard's jacket and the thought of his family.

There was nothing but roaring heat and blistering light, Artemis staggered over some item of kitchen equipment and let go, putting out a hand to stop himself from falling. He touched something metal with his palm and seared the softened flesh, crying out in pain. He somehow managed to stay upright, but the stumble had left him completely disorientated. He lost sight of the shape in front of him. He was going to die. Burn to death. What a horrible way to go. He choked on the smoke, tried to shout, but the name came out croaked and almost silent. His knees collapsed and he fell to the floor heavily. Sparks leapt up in showers but it was cooler down here. Marginally. Maybe he would just lie here for a minute to breathe. Gather his strength. Then he'd get up. Yes. He'd do that.

His eyes were burning.

He closed them against the white-hot glare...

* * *

><p>The Major noticed his charge was gone just as he reached the relative safety of the open restaurant. The rest of the customers piled out past him, heading for the stairs. The Major swore loudly, turning on his heel and shouting his charge's name.<p>

Did he have to do _everything_ himself around here? How hard could walking through a burning building be?

* * *

><p>Artemis Junior gripped the door handle to stop himself from sliding across the smooth leather as his mother swung them round another sharp corner. Her knuckles were as white and as clamped on the steering-wheel as his were on his own lifeline as she drove them through the city. Cars, vans, motorbikes, pedestrians, all swerved, scattered and leapt out of the way.<p>

"_Mother!_ Where are we going?"

"I don't know. As far away from here as possible," she said, squeaking slightly as they missed a near-head-on collision for the fourth time. The brakes and steering on the Bentley were pinpoint accurate and extremely sensitive. She had learnt to drive in a much smaller car, not to mention cheaper, nearly two whole decades ago - and hadn't had much experience since. In fact, the only car she _had_ driven whilst married to Artemis Fowl, had been a 1937 Packard Victoria, a birthday present from her husband after she had complained about her lack of independence. That had been years ago too, even before Arty had been born, and she had taken Artemis Senior and The Major out in it for a picnic. Without telling the whole story, the picnic had _not _been eaten in the beautiful emerald scenery of Ireland by the Fowls, but rather by the servants in the kitchen once they had returned, shaken and pale from their excursion. To put it shortly, the expensive car had almost ended up in a hedge, the bodyguard had driven it back to the manor and the crimson 1507 convertible had remained, perfectly polished and ready for action, at the back of the garage ever since.

"Butler said to go home," her son reminded her as calmly as he could under the present circumstances.

"I know, but unfortunately I can't quite remember exactly which road that would be. Can you?"

"No," Artemis admitted, starting to look for familiar signs flashing past.

Angeline settled more into the driving, drawing less attention to the car and almost starting to enjoy herself. Perhaps she _should _have another go at driving. Although maybe she would take the _younger _Artemis and Butler pair. She rather thought her original passengers would politely decline her offer.

Behind them a car undertook dangerously, sending another careering over the pavement and into a barrier. The smash was so loud it even penetrated the windows of the Bentley, albeit as a muffled sound. It sounded like a crisp packet being crumpled underfoot.

Artemis craned his neck round to look. "Mother, I don't wish to alarm you but I think we're being followed..."

Angeline stopped at a red light. The car bullied others out of the way, the queue folding like a pack of cards as it crept closer. Two men leapt out of the back and sprinted towards them, barging a driver out of the way when he got out of his car to see what was going on.

"Hold on Arty, I'm going to run the red light," Angeline warned, ramming the car into gear again and setting off with an impressive wheel spin that made Artemis scream out in fear.

"_Mother!"_

* * *

><p>The Major pulled his jacket over his face and took a breath before he re-entered the blazing kitchen. Ex-meals charred to smithereens littered the ground, plates smashed to the floor as a blast sent a sideboard flying. The Major dodged it and it shattered into the wall. He used the searing hot metal of the remaining siding to guide his way through the path he had taken. His palms were rather more used to hard work and abuse than his charge's.<p>

_Asbestos fingers,_ Juliet called them.

"Artemis!" he yelled, ignoring the distractions. Madame Ko had taught her students well. He had once had to run through a bustling market chasing a black and white rat with a red collar with a golden bell on it. The little blighter had run like a tiny greyhound, disappearing under market stands and weaving between people's sandalled feet and robes. At one point, a cage of similar rats had been released, just to confuse the matter further. Chickens too had been involved. Yet the whole time, The Major had remained focussed on his rodent 'principal' and eventually caught up with it, rescued it from trampling and attack from cats and dogs until finally he had caught it, just before it had disappeared down a drain. He even had the scar on his thumb to prove it's ungratefulness at being 'saved'. She had told him, Madame Ko, not the rat, when he had asked what exactly the lesson was meant to teach him, that the moral was simple. Your principals would drive you crazy with their antics, or be the death of you both. What came first depended entirely on your own skills.

In the kitchen inferno there was no answer.

_Honestly! The man could turn a picnic into a near-death experience,_ The Major thought frustratedly. _Or at least his wife could._

The Major banished that particular memory to the rear of his head where he kept most things he never wanted to relive again. There it resided with failures, bomb explosions, deaths, murders, being reprimanded by Madame Ko and other assorted unpleasantries any Butler is forced to suffer throughout their lives.

Yes. It really had been _that_ bad.

As he made his way back through the flames, he could hardly understand how his charge has managed to get lost in the five or so metres he had had to walk to safety. Then again, this was Artemis Fowl. And could he follow simple instructions? _Nooo, he couldn't._ Could he get lost walking in a straight line? _Apparently so._ Knowing his luck, the man had walked himself directly into an open oven, or something equally as idiotic.

_Calls himself a bloody genius... _The Major cursed the stupidity and physical ineptness of his charge as he walked forward, practically blindly in the smoke, scouting the floor with his feet until he knocked against something soft. He gripped the lifeless form by the back of its dinner jacket, relieved when he saw the familiar face in the fire glow, in equal parts worried about the closed eyes and limp features. He hauled his charge over his shoulders and ducked back out of the kitchen.

The air felt practically arctic compared to the kitchen and The Major gasped it into his lungs gratefully as he ran for the stairs. He had tried smoking once, on the suggestion of a temporary principal he had had before being assigned to a Fowl. _You need to relieve your stress, Major-mate. You gotta try this... _Needless to say, poisoning his lungs hadn't relieved any stress at Major hadn't enjoyed the experience, nor continued with it, and the short trip into the kitchen had reminded his choking throat exactly _why_.

"...3..._HEAVE!_"

He span round to see a waiter helping someone trapped. He ignored the pair. Not his problem. At least until he saw who it was who was stuck.

The man on the make-shift lever resorted to leaning on it, standing on it, _jumping _on it, and finally the beam moved minutely, just enough for Butler to drag himself out.

And then the table leg snapped.

The rebound knocked the waiter flying and smacked his head off a table with a sickening dull _clunk_ of skull on wood.

Butler rolled out of the way, not about to get stuck under anything else soon.

But the beam held.

Just.

Someone tall, bald and familiar with an equally recognisable man slung onto his shoulder, caught his attention.

_Why is he still here?_ Butler wondered. His uncle was shouting something.

"Get up! Come on!" he was roaring at him. "Up and _out_!"

Butler's soldier brain clicked into action at the sergeant-major-like orders and he leapt to his feet. He kicked the numb feeling out of his legs and turned to see what had become of his helper. The man was very still.

_Ah shit. Again._

He grabbed hold of the man's lapels and hauled him upright. Some sort of tremor reverberated through the building and The Major saw the beam snap in two from the top of the stairs.

One end fell as though in slow motion, groaning as it did so, like a felled giant.

"DOMOVOI NOW!" he bellowed, shouldering the completely unconscious Artemis into a safer lifting position and starting down the stairs in leaping bounds eerily similar to that of a large predator.

_OK, whatever it is, it's serious_, Butler realised, slinging the waiter over his own back and sprinting towards the stairs as the thing that had been trapping him crashed through the partition wall and into the kitchen.

It crushed a mains gas pipe, rupturing it instantly.

For want of a better word once again: _**'KA-BOOM!'**_

* * *

><p><strong> Alright so this one wasn't <em>quite<em> as long as the last two, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway!**

**If you search the car on Google Images it's the reddish coloured one, if anyone wanted an accurate mental picture of Angeline Fowl nearly driving Artemis I and The Major into a hedge. (I will merely say there was a tractor and a herd of cows involved and the car needed a good clean afterwards.)**

**And just if you're interested, whilst obsessing about the word count (which I like to be at _least_ above 2,000 per chappie) I noticed that, so far, the draft copy for this story is over 30,000 words long - that's at least a full 9,999 more words than 'The That Look Incident' (which I consider to be pretty much the best thing I've ever put on FanFic) and I haven't even finished writing in all the flashback bits and/or edited it all yet.**

**Sooo... unless that's another 10,000+ words of utter crap I've written, things are looking up for this story :)**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>**** O **


	4. Underestimating is for Fools

**Thanks to:**

*** tech17 * (for pointing out the bloop in the last chappie)**

*** Beckett Simpleton * (for suggesting I'm related to the Butlers)**

*** Holiday Boredom * (for the praise on Artemis Senior and The Major)**

*** Steinbock * (for reviewing even though you were ill - get well soon)**

**Well, now we're getting to the proper action-y bit :) Woop! However I just read through this and it's more of a filler than I thought. Sorry 'bout that :/**

**Other than that, enjoy!**

**Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 4 - Underestimating is for Fools<strong>

**_Flashback_**

Carker_ swore at Fowl again, tearing a cheque out of his own cheque-book with the ferocity he would like to use to detach his opponent's head and stabbing at it with the nib of the fountain pen so viciously that it's golden point snapped, spattering ink all over the paper and desk._

"_Oh dear," Artemis tutted. "Such a shame to break such a beautiful writing implement in a tantrum, you agree? Have you another pen?"_

_Carker's eyes glinted, an idea miraculously materialising before his eyes._

"_Yes. In the drawer," he muttered, keeping up the visage of his helpless fury. Reaching down under the desk he opened the top drawer and slid his hand into it._

"_Don't even..." The Major started with dawning realisation._

_But Carker flicked his hand up and depressed a bright red button on the underside of the desk, triggering a silent alarm that would bring a dozen or so armed guards to the room in under half a minute._

"_What was that? What did you do?" For the first time since the start of the meeting, Fowl seemed flustered._

_Carker sat back in his office chair, trying to ignore the fact that there was the gun of a now __**very **__pissed off member of the Butler family grinding into his neck. Which was never a good thing._

_**Should've seen that coming.**__ The Major mentally hit himself, but there was no point in dwelling on what should have been done now. He'd just have to see how things panned out and react accordingly._

"_I told you I was in charge here, Fowl," Carker said smugly. "You people just never listen."_

"_Major?" Artemis asked, genuinely concerned. This was not how he'd planned it at all. His mind cast around as to how to get them out of this. He wondered for a second how long, if he was killed, it would take for them to find the bodies. All three of them, of course. Carker was unlikely to stop at just him. He wondered how his family would react. Would they be distraught? Or would they at least be able to sleep soundly at night knowing that they were not under threat from vengeful opponents of __**Fowl Industries**__? Then there was Juliet too. How would she cope with the news? As far as he knew, her brother and uncle were the only family she had. And he had endangered all their lives._

_**It's always like this,**__ he reprimanded himself. __**You never think far enough into the consequences before you start on another of your harebrained schemes.**_

_Little did he know, he would pass his plotting abilities onto his young son. Only Artemis Junior would be considerably smarter, more forward-thinking and, eventually, kinder than his father was now._

_Artemis Senior looked to his bodyguard for help as he always did when things started to go wrong. It occurred to him that he relied rather too much on The Major straightening out his mistakes and never really gave him credit for it when it was all over. Well, if the Butlers got him out of this one, maybe it would be **him** giving them a raise._

_The Major's usually stoic features looked frustrated in a way that he always seemed to be whenever Artemis was simultaneously feeling the emotion he recognised as fear. When a youngster, Artemis had teased his bodyguard that the 'fear-receptors' had been trained out of him and now his body didn't actually __**know **__how to be or look scared, so it just made him look and be angry instead. In reality, it was practically true. To the general population of the world, the fact stood that Butlers didn't feel fear. And if they ever did, it never showed._

"_Come on," The Major said, dragging Carker up out of his chair by the collar and round the side of the desk. "We're leaving."_

"_Walk," Butler instructed Drake. "And try anything and your brains hit that wall, understood?"_

"_Whatever, dickhead," Drake grunted._

_Butler ignored him. Things were about to get very messy._

_Through the bullet-proof glass, they could see events unfolding outside in the corridor. The 'unconscious' guards Butler and The Major had 'fought' earlier, leapt up with shouts of alarm and orders as Carker's team thundered round the corner._

_There were multiple gunshots, barely audible through the reinforced, supposedly sound-proof, glass and The Major paused. The security team could handle themselves, he was sure enough of that or else he wouldn't have hired them. But directly into a firefight was __**not **__were he wanted to take his charge. Right now or ever. Even with hostages, there was the possibility that Carker's men would go for a kill shot, even if it meant risking the life of their own boss. And The Major couldn't guard his principal as well as he would like__** and**__ keep hold of Carker._

_He locked the door and stepped away from it, dragging Carker with him. But Artemis stood, caught in some sort of morbid fascination at the scene playing out on the other side of the glass. It was as though the transparent walls were a giant screen, showing the fight-scene climax of some high-budget action film._

"_Artemis! Get away from the door," The Major warned, torn between letting go of Carker to grab him and simply verbally asking his charge to do what he was told._

_Amazingly, this was one of the few times that he actually obeyed. Artemis blinked the stunned look off his face and stepped backwards..._

_At that very instant, Drake leapt to one side, putting Fowl directly in the line of fire that any bullet Butler shot would take after it left the other side of his head._

_A lesser bodyguard might have fired, killing his opponent but also murdering his employer with the same bullet. Drake was, despite the taunting, counting on the fact that Butler was a blue-diamond and would not make such a horrific mistake._

_He didn't._

_However, the millisecond it took to realign the gun was enough for Drake to kick out at somewhere exceptionally painful and swing away from the hostage hold, drawing his own weapon. Butler barely even flinched at the cheap-shot - that was Madam Ko-style training for you (don't even ask) - and had his own gun trained on Drake's forehead in under the time it took the other man to take a rapid breath. _

_They were at deadlock. Stalemate._

"_Not so cocky now, are you?" Drake sneered, finger creaking on the trigger of his gun, trying to calculate whether the younger Butler's reflexes were faster than a bullet. Annoyingly, the answer was **probably**._

"_Why would I need to be?" Butler answered, starting their stand-off circle rotating slowly by stepping to one side, as though trying to get out of the line of fire. "I know what I'm capable of. Do you?"_

"_What's that supposed to be? Some bullshit 'don't-underestimate-me speech' ain't gonna save you now, diamond-boy," Drake laughed. "They'll be through that door in a minute and then you'll be finished. If you're lucky I'll ask them to save you for me. Or unlucky, should I say. I'm still looking forward to that fight and don't think I'll go easy on you just because they'll have roughed you up first."_

_Butler said nothing, but stopped side-stepping suddenly, almost catching Drake off guard. _

_A single gunshot sound ricocheted round the room and more than one of the people in it yelled out..._

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

As it has already been stated, several times; Angeline Fowl had rarely driven anywhere. However, she_ still_ managed to avoid certain doom... again, _several times_. She considered the fact that people seriously underestimated her sometimes. Then she almost drove them into the back of a braking truck and decided she'd think about that later and concentrate on her driving for now.

Blue lights and wailing sirens appeared from a side road and joined the two other cars in the chase. The second car slowed and pulled away slightly, but the Fowl's Bentley kept right on going.

"Mother!" Artemis yelped, quite hysterically it had to be said. "Perhaps if we pull up at the police station they will stop pursuing us as we can explain our situation!"

"Yes you're right. Good plan," Angeline agreed, turning a corner and almost hitting a lamppost as she simultaneously swerved to avoid a moped. "Except that we don't know where exactly that is..."

They approached a roundabout, passing a sign just slowly enough for Artemis to catch a glimpse.

"There!" he yelled. "Police station - second exit!"

They took it at speed, barely missing the barriers and shooting down the road towards a low, lit-up building. But their luck finally ran out as Angeline swerved to avoid a police car pulling out of the carpark, ironically, setting off to find _them_. The Bentley's wide nose clipped the curb and slid out of control. Wrenching the wheel to one side, she tried to regain it as they crashed over the grass verge. She stomped the brake and the car responded instantly, grass tearing up in massive furrows behind them and finally creating enough friction to stop them - mere centimetres away from the police station's wall.

The Fowls were thrown forward in their chairs, saved by their seatbelts as the airbags went off simultaneously. The engine stalled into silence and police cars screeched to a halt, sirens cutting off. The only sound for a few seconds was their ragged breathing. Angeline felt like she had run as far as she had driven.

Doors slammed behind them and there was a shout.

"Get out of the vehicle with your hands on your head!"

"Oh dear," said Angeline, smoothing a strand of hair out of her face with one shaky hand and pulling the keys out of the ignition with the other. "I think we should get out, darling."

Artemis nodded, equally as shakily, unable to believe what was happening. Then again, it could be fairly said that he had lived a rather sheltered life overall, yet now, his normally quiet, careful and reserved mother had just driven him helter-skelter through the city, pursued by police cars and gunmen and there wasn't a bodyguard in sight.

They both opened their doors and stepped out into the chaos of lights and sounds.

"Step away from the..." the policeman suddenly seemed to realised that neither of the Fowls looked remotely threatening and lowered his taser slowly.

"I'm terribly sorry," Mrs Fowl called over to him. "But you see... we were attacked and..."

"Would you come with me, please?" he said, striding over. "We can discuss this in the station."

Angeline was horrified to find herself temporarily cuffed as they made their way inside, but Artemis was perhaps even more appalled by the man referring to him as 'sonny' than seeing his mother treated like a criminal.

Inside, the building had an air of efficiency and no-nonsense. The woman behind the desk took off her reading glasses and regarded them interestedly.

"Well, what have we here then?"

Over a cup of tea with plenty of sugar for shock, their story was told to the female police officer who then relayed it to the rest of the team. The damage to the Bentley was proof enough of their tale. That and the car that had vanished entirely for now and had been followed by another police car, but not yet found.

"Still, I'm afraid you will have to be breathalysed, Mrs. Fowl. Protocol you understand," the policewoman said. "When was the last time you had an alcoholic drink?"

Angeline was suddenly very glad she had refused that extra glass of wine.

"About an hour ago," she worked out, glancing at the ornate watch on her wrist. Had it only been an hour since she'd been eating starters with her family. She thought about the last words she had said to her husband and fell a nibble of guilt. "Can my son come with me?"

"He'll be perfectly safe with Gerald here," the woman said, not unkindly.

Angeline gave Gerald a once-over. He was perhaps the most geriatric of the force. And he definitely was _not_ on her list of people, currently comprising of just three men, that she would trust with her child.

Unfortunately for her, she didn't have much of a choice.

Unfortunately for them, those on the list of whom she _would _trust with her son, were currently in a burning building.

* * *

><p>Even with the guy slung over his shoulders, Butler made it to the top of the stairs before the explosion hit him. He flew forward, crashing into his uncle and sending them both tumbling head-over-heels in a tangle of conscious and unconscious limbs. The Major smacked his head off a handrail, the skin just above his eyebrow splitting open spectacularly and sending a nasty vibration through his brain. Anyone else would have been knocked out, but Butlers might as well have been selectively bred to have bones of an iron-like constitution and skulls of exceptional thickness.<p>

They bounced painfully down the flight until they finally came to a halt at the fifth floor landing. It was the younger Butler who was up first and he rolled the waiter to one side for the moment, first checking that Mr. Fowl still had a pulse. He did, beating strongly despite the fall and smoke inhalation. The waiter was still kicking too. Butler let out a relieved breath, then he held out a hand to his uncle who ignored it, hauling himself up on the offending handrail and wiping blood out of his eye irritatedly.

"God damn it, Domovoi," he growled. "Can you not just do your _job_, boy?"

"Hey, he saved me first," the younger Butler gestured at the waiter, slumped in a makeshift recovery position. _Wow does that sound like an argument in a playground_...

The Major sighed. "Not that I'm not glad that he did, but where are the others?"

Butler's features remained impassive but inside he winced mentally. _Ot-oh here we go..._

"We should get out of here first."

"_Where_ are they?"

This time it wasn't a question. It was a demand.

"I gave Madam Fowl the keys to the Bentley," he admitted carefully. "So, hopefully, they're in the car."

"_Hopefully?_"

Another explosion, on an even larger scale than The Major's outburst, echoed from upstairs. "We'll talk about this _later_."

Butler had no doubt that they would have a_ long_ conversation about this _later_. For one, The Major had just given him the same look his mother once had when she had caught him keeping a knife in a shoebox under his bed after his first term at the Academy...

What else was he supposed have done this time? Say: _Could you just wait up there for a sec Missus Fowl whilst I try to get out from under here. That's right, sit there - don't mind the blaze, it'll die down in a bit..._

But he swallowed his retort and picked up the waiter, waiting for his uncle to take the lead and following as they thundered down the stairs in complete darkness. The building's entire electrical supply had short-circuited at some point, not even the emergency exit signs lit the way and both men were very glad that this building had accurate blueprints. The Butlers stumbled on blindly, led only by memorised plans, until finally they burst out of a set of double-doors into a pandemonium of shouting, flashing lights, spraying water and injured people.

Paramedics were treating their newest patients, fire-fighters were shouting orders to each other and the customers and staff of _The Skylight Restaurant_ were sat around wailing or silent and in various states of shock.

One of the firemen ran over, pushing his visor up as he took in the sight of the two giants.

"Excuse me; did you just make it down from the top floor?"

"Yes." They stated in unison.

"Do you think there is anyone else up there? Did you see anyone? We're checking anyway but if you saw _anyone_ it would really help our search."

"Think we're the last out," The Major told him. It was true, other than his nephew he hadn't seen anyone else trapped and other than the pair they were carrying he hadn't seen anyone unconscious.

"Thank-you. You'd better get treated mate, nasty cut you've got on your head there."

The larger man waved away the concerns like a bull with a fly.

"Come on, let's get these two to an ambulance," he said to his nephew, who followed.

As they got closer, a paramedic spotted the four.

"Excuse me? Would you take a look at this man please," The Major asked, surprisingly politely for him - given the circumstances.

"Of course, any ideas what happened to him?" the paramedic asked, frowning concernedly at the limp form of the European Crimelord.

Butler almost snorted in the background. _What? The exploding building wasn't clue enough?_

"Smoke inhalation as far as I know."

"Do you have a name for him?"

Key point here. Mr. Fowl was being hunted down.

"No. I just found him," The Major lied easily.

"And the other man?"

Butler shrugged his temporary charge off his shoulders. "I think he's one of the waiters."

"I am," the waiter croaked.

Butler looked at him in surprise. He hadn't thought he'd wake up that quick with a smack to the head that hard.

"Thanks for... saving me," the guy coughed.

"No problem," Butler shrugged. "Guess this makes us even now."

"Quits. Yeah, quits..." the waiter mumbled repetitively, sinking back into unconsciousness.

"Alright, will you just put him over here, and you can lay the other man on that," the paramedic led them to two spare gurneys.

The Major gently slid his principle off his back and placed him on the wheeled stretcher. Whilst the paramedic was looking at the waiter, he pulled off his own watch and removed Mr. Fowl's, then slid off all the rich man's rings except the wedding one, pocketing them quickly. He'd be done for mugging if the police saw. He slipped his own watch round his charge's wrist, tightening it. Hopefully that would let Artemis know he was coming back for him.

A policeman came up behind them and The Major was glad he'd acted quickly.

"Excuse me? Can I take names for you two?" the man asked. "Just for later reference."

"Of course," The Major nodded, flicking through his mental list of aliases - and those he could easily connect with his nephew's own extensive supply. "Constantin Bashkir."

"Mr?"

"Major."

"Have you got any ID?" the policeman asked, a little nervously in case the giant got angry at his demanding for proof of identity. He was new on the force. All the more experienced coppers of the area were out on some car chase with guns whilst he was stuck investigating an exploding restaurant. _Typical._

The Major patted a pocket, pulling out a wallet and selecting a fake driver's licence for the policeman to look at.

"And do you know him?" the man jotted the fake name down, checking the spelling of the, apparently Russian, ex-soldier's surname.

"He's my nephew. Stefan?" The Major called before Butler could mess up the story. "Have you got ID on you?"

"No, Uncle, sorry,

Butler called back, too preoccupied with looking for the remainder of the Fowl family to work out which pocket his Bashkir ID was currently in.

"Was that Stefan with an 'f' or a 'ph'?"

The Major almost rolled his eyes. It was hard enough keeping track of the multiple identities he had himself, then add that to those of his charge, then on top of that those of his nephew and then he was expected to remember the exact spelling of each name too? He was a bodyguard, not a computer.

"It's an 'f', same surname," he said. If it came up later his nephew could explain that his uncle always spelt it wrong on Christmas cards too or something...

"Excellent, have you a number I can contact you on? We'll be needing witness statements later, but obviously you two will want to get cleaned up first."

"Of course, it's..." The Major quickly dredged up yet _more _he had to remember.

Whilst his uncle was sorting formalities and searching his head for the relevant details, Butler was in tracking mode and searching for his charge. No such luck. Or then again, maybe it was. As far as he could see, his charge wasn't laid out on a gurney receiving treatment.

He crossed to where the Bentley was parked. Or rather, where it _had_ been parked. Chunks of rubber and spent ammunition confirmed his worst suspicions.

The Major strode over, not looking best pleased. Butler saw a trail of sparkling bullets leading the way out onto the main road.

"That policeman got a call in as I was speaking to him. There's been a failing to stop with firearms involved. Sounded like it's over now but one of the vehicles is at the police station riddled with bullets. If it's the Bentley I swear..."

Butler winced physically this time and for the third time that evening, the same profanity came to mind.

_Ah shit._

* * *

><p><strong>Ha ha poor Butler. Not only has he been shot, half-crushed and fallen down a flight of stairs he's going to have to suffer the wrath of his uncle when they find out what happened to his car... Despite all that, he honestly is my favourite character. Honest.<strong>

**Two things I don't like about this chapter - the fact that I gave the Fowls a brew before the breath-test (wouldn't have happened in real life) and the title which I couldn't think of a better one.**

**Hoping you're enjoying anyway :) ****Updates really will probably slow down as of tomorrow but by then we might be on Chapter 6.**

**Off to try and make that not too much of a cliffy for you all,**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O **


	5. Watching Out For You

**Thanks to:**

*** 2whitie ***

*** Beckett Simpleton ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** HolidayBoredom ***

**for the reviews - as usual, you guys are awesome.**

**Happier with the title for this one.**

**Since you're probably all dying to know how The Major is going to react to what happened to his car I'll just shut up and let you read it.**

**Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 5 - Watching Out For You<strong>

_**Flashback**_

_Artemis covered his ears and dropped to the floor._

_The Major noticed out of the corner of his eye that his charge __**had **__been listening throughout all the scenario reaction lessons he had taught him after all. Then his attention was solely on Drake who had dropped and rolled at the gunshot and was now under Carker's desk._

"_Come out Drake," he called, one arm round Carker's neck in a headlock, the other holding the gun that had fired the shot. "Don't be a coward."_

_The bullet had been deadly accurate, but it hadn't drawn blood. Instead it had hit the gun in Drake's hand, the impact causing him to drop it and dive out of the way in case of a second shot. The man should have divided his attention between the pair of them rather than monologuing. If he had been blue-diamond trained perhaps he wouldn't have made the mistake._

_Outside the fight was still on. A hand slapped a device with powerful suction cups to the glass and pressed a button. It started flashing slowly. _

_If that was what he thought it was..._

_Carker's men retreated, swiftly followed by Fowls team. The Major realised two things. One, the team could probably overpower Carker's in the wider space of the next corridor. And two, there was probably another reason Drake was still behind the desk._

_The device started flashing more rapidly and suddenly who gave one about Drake? The gun was probably beyond repair anyway and if he tried anything it was still two against one. Of course, there were five of them in the room, just no one was counting the principals._

"_Stay down, Artemis," The Major said tersely, crossing the room towards him and knocking a filing cabinet onto the floor next to him. He had no idea how much explosive was packed into that palm-sized electronic but his instincts were telling him he should be erring on the side of 'a lot'._

"_Major...?"_

"_Cover your ears and keep your head down," The Major interrupted his charge. The amount he was angry at him for this idiotic plan would never be voiced aloud but Artemis felt it as The Major lay on the floor next to him and kept one hand firmly on Carker's neck._

"_Hey, would you..." the man protested at the uncomfortable hold._

"_Shut your mouth or I break your neck."_

_Butler looked over from his own cover by a bookshelf as though asking for an order, but as his uncle was about to give one, the device let out a high-pitched beep and the air itself seemed to explode._

_The crack of the previous gunshot was nothing compared to this. The force not only decimated the glass, but ripped chunks from the concrete surrounding it. The whole room became a cloud of debris and the people in it mere shadows of indistinguishable beings._

_Butler holstered his gun quickly. He couldn't risk using it if he couldn't see who he was shooting. He squinted through the dust. A shape he was fairly sure was his uncle was getting up carefully, holding one smaller shape in front of him and the other behind. It was obvious which would be which. _

_He was using the confusion as a way to escape. Or at least he would if it wasn't for the fourth shadow that appeared out of its hiding place and was slinking its way towards them._

_Hoping Drake didn't have a working gun of his own, Butler rose from his crouch and silently cleared the floor-space between them._

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

"And blow... blow... keep blowing... yes that'll do."

The machine beeped, spurring out a receipt with numbers on it that meant nothing to Angeline but were obviously of utmost importance to the policewoman.

"Yes that's fine, Mrs. Fowl," the policewoman, Helen, said, reading the figures and nodding. "Let's get you back to your son."

They entered the room to find an entirely different scene to the one they had left.

Instead of Artemis huffily insisting to the elderly policeman that a cup of tea would be acceptable and that no, he did _not_ want a '_juice_', the tray of drinks was spread all over the floor in an array of smashed china and liquid and there were two other men in the room.

One of them held a gun to Gerald's head.

Helen kept her cool and pressed her distress call button discreetly. The dispatch teams would likely be on their way back anyway, but this would let them know there had to get back _quicker_.

"Now there's no need for weapons," Gerald was saying calmly. "Could you tell me why you want the boy?"

"That's none of your business, gramps," the man snapped. He was nursing a bleeding arm and he turned, spotting Angeline. "And her. She's coming too."

"She will _not_ be and neither is her son," Helen drew herself up to her full, but not formidable, height.

"And what are you going to do?"

"There's a trained armed team on the way to detain you immediately."

"Oh _really_?"

"Yes, actually."

"Shut up," the man drawled, firing a shot just a foot above her head - whether on purpose or because of his injury, no-one knew. Helen ducked but still tried to look authoritative.

_This is all about us_, Angeline realised. And she was not about to have people die on her behalf, necessarily or not.

"Alright, we'll come with you - just don't hurt anyone," she said bravely.

"Mrs. Fowl..." Helen began, grabbing her arm. Artemis too looked unhappy with her suggestion.

"No, no Helen it's quite alright. If we stay these men will shoot people and I cannot have that on my conscience."

Helen was torn. The woman was right, but if they held on for just a _few more_ minutes the now near-empty police station would be full of trained officers.

"I'm quite sure our own security are tracking us as we speak," Angeline continued. "And I would much rather be kidnapped than someone be killed."

"Alright," the policewoman agreed reluctantly. "But we'll get right on to finding you."

Angeline nodded and stepped forward into the grip of the gunmen who kept his weapon pointed at Gerald as a precaution. He had recently learnt not to underestimate people just because they were older than him.

Artemis was being held by the shoulders by the other man who spoke up,"What about the other two?"

"Huh? Oh yeah. Get in that cell," the one in charge said, gesturing the two police officers to walk in front of him. Angeline watched as the worried looks of Helen and Gerald were blocked out by the solid door.

"Come on then. Let's go before this so-called team gets here," Mrs. Fowl's captor said sarcastically, dragging her towards Artemis's who holding him by the arm at the door.

"If you let go of me I will go with my mother willingly," the boy said angrily.

The man just laughed at him. "You'll come wherever I tell you to."

"Get your hands off me," Artemis snapped, realising a little too late that this was _not_ the way to talk to someone without his Butler by his side. The man's laugh turned sour.

"You dare talk to me like that you little brat," he swung a backhand at the youngest Fowl who fell to the floor.

"Artemis!" Angeline shrieked, the man holding her clamped a grubby palm over her mouth.

"You hit me!" Artemis gasped in shock. He'd never been hit before. _Ever._ Not even in jest by Juliet. Her brother and uncle had made sure of that.

"And don't think I won't do it again - now get up," the man hauled Artemis to his feet, almost dislocating his shoulder with the roughness.

Artemis was half dragged out of the door, down the path and thrown into the back of a car he recognised as the one that had been following them earlier.

Sirens started up in the distance, closing the distance rapidly.

As Angeline was pulled towards the car, she wriggled her wrist out of the man's grip, seemingly attempting to hit him to cover the fact that she was actually removing her watch. She flung it to the ground, covering the movement with another screech before she was bundled into the car after her son.

She grabbed his hand and held it tightly, quickly ensuring they were both buckled in.

"Be brave Arty, I'm sure they're coming for us."

"If you're talking about those Butler guys I think you'll be waiting a while," the man getting into the driver's seat chuckled nastily.

The man who had been shot by his own bullet got into the car and sat himself next to her, far too close for comfort. She winced as he breathed in her face.

"Hello darlin', wanna tell me where your hubby is?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. We parted at the restaurant," she said, turning away.

"Well isn't that a shame?" he patted her leg with his large hand as his partner drove them quickly from the scene. She flinched. "You let me know if you remember where he went alright?"

_Please come soon,_ she prayed, hoping that someone, _anyone_ would rescue them.

* * *

><p>They <em>were <em>on their way.

Steadily, doggedly and, unfortunately, on foot.

After deciding it would be better for Mr. Fowl to remain anonymous, and hopefully safer, The Major used one of the medical pads from the first-aid box in Butler's pocket to wipe up his head, duck-taping another over it in a too-high eye-patch before they set off.

They left the scene quickly, not waiting behind to leave the statements of Constantin and Stefan Bashkir.

The Major didn't know whether to yell at his nephew or congratulate him on his quick thinking. If the other Fowl's had stayed behind, they could have been killed in the fire. Now, however, they were jogging after a trail of tyre skid-marks and destruction, hoping to find them _not_ killed by a car-crash at the end.

"You couldn't have just told her to call the police," The Major muttered as they jogged past a telltale silver scrape of paint on a lamppost. It was almost _physically_ paining him every time he saw something that would almost certainly correspond to similar damage to his favourite vehicle.

Butler, keeping up easily despite his still slightly numb legs, replied as tetchily as he dared. "She _said_ she could drive."

"Well clearly she can," The Major huffed. "But I'm not sure I want to see the state the Bentley's in after this."

Butler rolled his eyes. His uncle was _very _protective over that car. They crossed over a roundabaout and, rounding the corner, he spoke again. "Then you might want to look away now."

The Major swore quite spectacularly (_And not just in English_, Butler noted with mild interest) as his eyes took in the scene and his brain informed him that _yes_, that _was_ his car. Or at least what it had been reduced to.

The Bentley was a mess.

And that was putting it politely. The tyres were more _holes_ than _wholes_ and the scratches went far deeper than the paintwork. Bullets had shattered the glass of every window, including the windscreen and although they were both relatively pleased to see that none seemed to have penetrated all the way through into the car itself. They were equally as _dis_pleased not to find the Fowls inside.

"I'll check the station, they're probably in there," Butler said hopefully.

"Go check," The Major nodded. "I'll just assess the damage."

Butler walked away, hopeful that they could pick up the Fowls and get back to the hospital to grab the family patriarch before he messed up their story. He wondered what his uncle would say when he saw Mrs. Fowl. Probably nothing. Which was typical. The Fowls could get away with anything and everything. Butler dreaded to think _exactly_ what his uncle would have said/done/made him do if the damage to the car was _entirely_ his fault. Actually, when you removed the Fowl from this particular 'Keys + Fowl = Uncle's Knackered Car' equation, he _had_ given her the keys. Which automatically made it _his_ fault for supplying said keys...

_Which meant..._ Butler cursed the way his uncle's brain worked but tried not to smirk as The Major started whispering to the car whilst he obviously didn't think anyone could hear.

"Oh baby, what did she do to you?" he was murmuring, amongst other sweet nothings, running his hands over a particularly nasty scrape and tutting his tongue against his teeth like a mother would at a child with a grazed knee.

Leaving his uncle to '_asses the damage'_, Butler made his way to the entrance, smile vanishing from his face when he saw the reception.

The main room was a mêlée of people. A single bullet hole marked the fact that someone had got there before them. He slunk in, unnoticed in amongst the rest of the bulky officers, despite easily being the largest in the room.

_No surprises there then_

A female officer was giving a statement, describing men that had, from what he could overhear, kidnapped a woman and a boy.

Butler was fairly certain that that was their 'woman and boy'.

_Of course it would be,_ he thought. _Who else would manage to get themselves kidnapped in the hour and a half they've been left on their own?_

Butler backed out of the room slowly, calling over his shoulder.

"Uncle? We have a situation."

"What kind?" his uncle asked from the other side of the vehicle. "I reckon she'll move once we get her started, but we're not going anywhere fast on these tyres."

Butler nodded. That was one thing that had gone right tonight at least. The again, it was to be expected with the Bentley. That car had driven them through hell and back.

"There've been guns here."

The Major immediately switched back from doting over the car to full bodyguard mode. "Blood?"

"No, just a whole in the wall."

"See if you can get a description."

"Imaginatively?" Butler raised an eyebrow as he used their euphemism for using their training to get what they wanted.

"If it takes it," The Major nodded. "I'll be ready to drive."

He got into the car, ready to put his set of keys in the ignition and to start at a second's notice. Or at least he would have been... The Major growled and adjusted the seat irritatedly when he found that his knees wouldn't fit behind the steering wheel. Not even a Fowl had the right to mess with his car.

Butler jogged back into the police-station. Something glinted on the path and he paused, swiftly checked what it was and running it over his fingers. A shining silver and pearl watch. _Mrs. Fowl's_ shining silver and pearl watch. A smudge of burnt rubber on the tarmac told him the kidnappers had left by car. In a hurry. Taking note of the direction the car had gone, he slipped back through the door.

This time people took more notice. Possibly due to the fact he was no longer _trying _to be invisible.

He ignored the stares, crossing straight to the woman being questioned.

"Excuse me?" Butler said quickly. "Could you tell me who took the woman and the boy?"

"And you are?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'm... a friend."

"Well I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to just lay out information to any _friend_ who walks in," she said seriously. "For all we know you're one of them."

Butler took a breath. "True. But I'm the boy's bodyguard."

"I thought you just said you we're their friend?"

"I am, I'm their friendly bodyguard," Butler shrugged, trying to diffuse some of the tension.

It didn't work.

"You could be the BFG for all I care, mister. You cannot just waltz in here demanding information," the man interviewing her said, but Helen paused. Mrs. Fowl had said something about their 'own security'.

Butler sighed forcibly through his nose. When would people learn that when a guy like him came in you just gave them what they wanted, or got out of the way. Preferably both.

He tried again. "Please, I need to find them."

The woman's face softened slightly. "Who did you say you were?"

Butler knew she was asking for a name but that would be leaving a trail so he sidestepped the question.

"I'm their bodyguard..."

"Well you didn't do a very good job, did you?" sneered the man taking notes.

Now, Butler knew he shouldn't loose his temper. And normally it took more than a jibe at his bodyguarding abilities to make him snap. But, in his defence, it had been a rather stressful night and now, this _gentleman_ was withholding information that could help him clear this mess up. And he _had_ tried being polite. Well... he'd said _please_, right?

He would have liked to have stepped forward and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and yelled in his face, but that was not a wise move in a room full of police officers.

Instead he leant over the shorter man and kept his voice dangerously low, which was perhaps even more terrifying than a full-on outburst from the seven foot monster.

"_Listen,_" he growled, his tones the exact pitch of an angry grizzly bear. "I intend to do your job for you, so give me the information and you won't have to worry about anything else."

"Don't you threaten me!" the man said, flustered.

"I'm not. I'm simply stating what is going to happen here," Butler continued, faux-calmly. "Now. Are you going to give me what I want, or do I have to take it?"

"How do you suppose to get people to tell what you want to know asking like that?" the man said confidently, clearly not believing anyone would answer any of the behemoth's questions.

Butler shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Then he snapped out a hand so fast the air whistled and snatched the notebook from the man's hand.

_Who had said anything about sitting around asking questions? _he thought as he turned on the spot and leapt past a few people.

Unfortunately, any sort of running in a police station tends to cause alarm. As does someone repeatedly shouting the word 'thief' and pointing after the big bald guy doing the running.

Butler, to put it colloquially, 'legged it'.

The Major was just wondering what was taking his nephew so long when they had people to find when he heard the shouting.

He sighed. _Why is nothing ever simple?_

He started the engine and the big car purred into action. His heart rate settled slightly at the familiar noise and he put the car into reverse, foot hovering over the accelerator.

_Let's see how many police cars we can outrun on chipped tyres, eh baby?_

* * *

><p>"Adult male, thirties, suspected smoke inhalation," someone was saying over the background hospital chatter. "Came in with this other feller here from the building with the gas explosion. Adult male, mid twenties, blow to the back of the head, suspected concussion..."<p>

Artemis frowned. _Where am I?_

He concentrated - that hurt - and tried to remember what series of events could possibly have led him to this point.

The memories came back in a flash of fire and fear. He tried to sit up, panicking when he found that there was something over his mouth and nose.

"Hey, hey easy there," a paramedic was telling him. "Calm down and we'll have you sorted out in no time."

Artemis cast his bleary eyes around for the 'other feller' half-hoping, half-dreading it would be The Major, despite the _'mid-twenties'_ comment. Well, the man looked good for his age, after all. But no hospital gurneys were straining under the weight of his bodyguard and the absence of police ready to question the amount of weaponry the man carried, told him that there must be another reason his manservant was missing.

He tried to speak, to ask where he was, but the mask over his face muffled what he was saying. A good thing, as it turned out, as when he raised a hand up to remove it, the watch that was definitely not his, dangled round his wrist, catching his attention.

"Ah ah, no, don't you take that off just yet," the paramedic said, repositioning the mask. "Just lie back and breathe nice deep breaths and you'll be fine."

Artemis lay back in the gurney. He could see the other man being treated for a head wound. People were rushing everywhere, bright ceiling lights dazzled him. He touched the watch for comfort. His bodyguard would come for him.

Until then, he just had to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

* * *

><p><strong>So, there goes another chappie. And we're not even half way through yet :)<strong>

**Has anyone else got an issue with/ idea of whether it's 'Madame' or 'Madam' for Ko or Fowl? I think I've been mix and matching...**

**Anybody want to know what I think the Bentley looked like _before_ it got mashed up? Type 'Bulletproof Bentley' into google and it's the 3rd one on the top line :)**

**Hope you liked it :)**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>**** O**


	6. Clichés, Codes and Claustrophobia

**Thanks to:**

*** KKCopper ***

**for the reviews :)**

**The _Flashbacks_ are nearing their end now, but the good news? It's longer than The That Look Incident already and we're only just halfway through chapter-wise.**

**Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 6 - Clichés, Codes and <strong>**Claustrophobia**

_**Flashback**_

_It would be cliché to say Drake never saw what hit him. But it was true, at least for the first time._

_Butler crashed into him with the force and accuracy of a professional rugby player and the pair of them collided into the wall with enough force to crack the plaster._

"_What the..." Artemis yelped as a solid cloud of dust roiled past him._

_There was a noise like a pair of sabretooth tigers tearing into eachother and then The Major hauled him and Carker out of the way as the hurricane went past again. Of course, it wasn't really a hurricane. It was two men with a point to prove. Artemis was only glad that his wife didn't resort to such violence to emphasise her own..._

"_What the hell is going on?" Carker yelled, trying futilely to break free. "Drake? **Drake!**"_

_There was a crash in which a swivel chair was involved before, for the first time in James Carker's life, Drake __**didn't **__come running to his call._

_The Major decided that the best thing he could do would be to get out now and come back later for... well, at this rate to drag his nephew away from whatever was **left** of Drake..._

_There was a roar of pain as Butler dodged a roundhouse punch and drove his own fist into Drake's face. Something broke. It didn't sound like knuckles._

"_Come on," The Major grunted, dragging the pair of businessmen towards the decimated wall. What was left of the corridor was empty but for settling dust. Still, The Major looked around carefully and pushed a protesting Carker out in front of him before he brought Artemis alongside the wall and headed for the door. With any luck the hired security team would have Carker's men under control and they could get out without any..._

"_Police! Get against the wall! Get against the wall with your hands where I can see them! Put your hands..."_

_There was a scuffle and someone screaming in a pitch The Major associated strongly with either pepper spray or taser-guns. Possibly both, in this case._

_**OK, not that way then.**_

_The Fowl bodyguard locked the door linking the two corridors and backed away quickly. It wouldn't hold for long but maybe it would give them more time to escape. At the other end of their corridor, they were in was an elevator. If it was still working despite the explosion, it could be their way out of this without arrests._

_The Major thumbed the lift's call-button. His nephew would have to make his own way out. If he was caught The Major would bail him and it would serve to remind him not to stick around at crime scenes for the sake of a revenge matches._

_Technically, he could leave without Carker too. If it wasn't for the fact that the entire reason for this disastrous episode had been to get the man's money._

"_You have your cheque book?" he demanded._

"_Uh... yeah?" Carker said uncertainly._

"_Congratulations. You just bought yourself lift ticket."_

"_I what?"_

_The elevator announced its arrival with a cheery 'ping'._

"_Is this really the best idea?" Artemis asked him nervously. "What about Butler..."_

_The Major considered the question. On the other side of the opposite door there was no gunfire yet, but there **was** a lot of shouting and likely trigger-happy police with tasers._

"_He can take care of himself."_

"_But Carker is the one at fault here..."_

"_Says the one who planted men..." Carker said haughtily._

"_Well if you know someone is conceited enough to fall for a trick..."_

"_Conceited? I **trusted**..."_

"_Then you should learn to hand out your trust less easily!"_

_The Major felt like a bloody __**babysitter**,__ nevermind a bodyguard._

"_Will you two just **shut up** and get in?"_

_The two men looked at him, shocked, but The Major ignored them, pausing with his finger on the ground floor button._

"_What are you waiting for? Let's go!"_

_Carker laughed suddenly, or at least until he realised that there were two people in close proximity definitely** not** amused and the noise petered out._

_"What?"_

_"My elevator, my codes," he said simply._

_Both Fowl and Butler looked at him in confusion. What? Now he was some sort of 'Willy Wonka'?_

_"Go on. Press the button. See what happens."_

_The Major did and the result was expected. Nothing. There was a beep and a small screen flashed with the lettering **'CODE REQUIRED'**._

_"Well then type it in!" Artemis practically yelled at him._

_"Not until we wait for Drake."_

_"Look Carker, he's not coming. So unless you want to get us all arrested..."_

_"He will. Watch," Carker said confidently. "Drake! Drake!"_

_The Major almost clamped a hand over the idiot's mouth. It was like kidnapping a bear cub that kept yelling for its mother. "Will you __**stop**__ doing that?"_

_But the dust had settled somewhat now and they could see that the two men had broken apart and were circling again slowly, panting. At the shout one of them turned slightly._

"_Look, gentlemen," Artemis called tentatively. "I'm sure you can finish this later."_

"_Drake just get in before we all get arrested," Carker tried._

_Drake and Butler actually paused what they were doing, which was giving eachother the 'death stare', to glance at the elevator._

_What the hell was this? They weren't some sort of... Pokémon characters. It was like a dogfight. And you didn't just put two in a ring and then whistle them out again at will._

_There was a rattle at the door and shouts for something to open it._

"_Are you coming or what?" The Major shouted to his nephew. If they didn't make their way over quickly he was considering his other options. Such as shooting Carker in the knee. That would either bring Drake running or cause enough pain for Carker to type in the codes... ah... voluntarily. It was either that, or try to get out of the elevator through the ceiling and onto the above floor and The Major didn't like the look of the size of the panels... _

_Butler relaxed out of his fighting stance warily and took a step towards the group. Drake spat blood and followed. The door bounced on its hinges and they piled in quickly, cramming against the back wall, Drake putting himself between Carker and the others as the man typed in the code quickly and pressed the button for the ground floor._

"_Neither of you are to start anything," The Major said sternly. "And I am **serious**,gentlemen."_

_For the briefest of moments Artemis felt like laughing at the utter surrealism of the situation. He might as well have been escaping in a magic box with his enemies, forced to work together under the circumstances. It was like some sort of book._

_The doors closed before the police burst into the corridor, leaving them trapped in what was quite possibly the most awkward elevator ride in the history of the invention. Not to mention claustrophobic. It would have been uncomfortable enough size-wise to expect the three largest men to travel in the metal box comfortably, let alone the other two. Artemis thought about the weight pulling down on the lift cables and held back a shudder, surprised that the lift hadn't just beeped at them and refused to move at all. That would have caused some arguments..._

"_Now __**you**__," The Major said, turning to Carker. "Sign that cheque."_

"_What?" Carker laughed. "You are **gravely** mistaken if you think you are getting a **single penny** of my..."_

_Butler drew his gun and pointed at his head silently. He was focussing on his job to keep any claustrophobic feelings at bay. And besides, he didn't need to speak to get across the threat. Drake stepped in the way, glaring at him furiously but unable to do anything but make himself a meat-shield. And there were more bullets in the Sig's magazine than he would survive._

"_Sign it and we leave," Artemis said, taking a pen from his pocket and pushing it into his opponent's hand._

_**Couldn't have handed that him earlier, could you?** The Major thought as he watched the numbers flicker down. Eleventh floor, tenth, ninth..._

"_Drake..." Carker started almost desperately._

"_I've no gun, boss," the bodyguard said, even though it pained him to do so. _

_"But..." Carker said, thinking of all the other weaponry Drake carried. Knives, for example._

_"And I'm not risking you getting killed in a knife fight or by** him**," Drake said the word 'him' like the average person might say 'dog shit'. "__Just write it."_

_Carker looked aghast. "Well... then I suppose..."_

_He wrote awkwardly, leaning on the elevator wall and signed it more reluctantly than he would rub raw chilli powder into his eyes._

_Then he practically threw it at Fowl who folded it neatly and put it in his pocket._

"_Pleasure doing business with you, James," Artemis smiled his trademark chilling grin. Vampiric, it had been called before. "You know, under different circumstances we could have been partners. Friends, even. What would you say if I called you in a few months with a proposition? After all this has died down of course..."_

_"Why don't you go shove your **proposition** up your pompous..."_

_And that was when the lift jerked violently and either they all went simultaneously blind, or the lights went out._

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

"So... Fowl will be with that brute of his, if he's not already dead," Carker mused. "You agree, my dear?"

Angeline nodded slowly, the picture of a broken woman. A bruise already swelling on her cheek told of her unwillingness to talk in the video they'd just recorded.

"So your daddy's out of the picture, little Arty."

Artemis tried hard to ignore him. Unable to believe what the man was saying. If it all turned out to be true, then life as he knew it would be over. At this rate, his very life itself could be over.

"And what about _your_ pet troll, kid?" the man continued. To be fair, he wasn't normally this cruel. But Fowl was... foul. And traitorous. And Carker would not make the mistake of gracing his family with niceties. "Any ideas on where _he_ might be?"

Artemis sat silently, he could hardly answer with his mouth taped and it took of all his willpower not to roll his eyes at the man's stupidity. Willpower, and the still-stinging bruise on his face.

"Let him speak," Carker drawled and someone ripped the gag off with a force that made Artemis's eyes water. His mother, tied next to him, squeezed his bound hands with hers as best she could. The tie-wraps were cutting into their wrists.

"I'll ask again. Where's your useless bodyguard?"

"He's not useless," Artemis said hotly.

"Oh yeah? Then where is he?" Carker gestured around the room they were in. The Fowls had been blindfolded on the way there so they had no idea they were in the basement of an abandoned take-away shop. Crates of supplies and 20kg bags of rice were arranged haphazardly around the otherwise unfurnished concrete room.

"Not hiding in here," Carker made a great show of pulling the lid off a bin and striding around a crate. "Nor behind here. Hey Drake - don't tell me the yeti's in the freezer?"

The man called Drake chuckled deeply and Artemis twisted round to see the large steel door with a single porthole of glass giving anyone tall enough to look through it a view of the inside of the walk-in freezer. Empty, but for the shelves of meat and other foodstuffs. Definitely no Butler.

"So come on kid, where'd do you think he is? And don't say heaven cause there ain't no chance that nephew of a bastard is going there!" Carker laughed at his own play on the insult. "See what I did there?"

But only Drake got the full meaning and rumbled in polite amusement. "Very good, sir."

"Well kid?" Carker continued.

Artemis paused for a second, thinking through what he was about to say. Then he suddenly realised he didn't need to make up a convincing lie. It was the truth. "I don't know."

"Is that the truth, kid?" Carker asked, his own bodyguard spun a knife lazily over his fingers. "Because I don't like liars. And Drake here, well he just hates 'em. Isn't that right?"

Drake nodded slowly, the knife glinting in the room's dim lighting. He was large and muscular - like Butler and The Major. But after his size, the similarity ended. The man looked to be quite a bit heavier. As Juliet would put it, _'He's not really __**fat**__... but he could lose some.._." He had a criss-crossing of tribal tattoos decorating his dark skin and his hair was fashioned into dreadlocks pulled behind his head in a rough ponytail. Two of his front teeth seemed to be made of solid gold; little did Artemis know it was a souvenir from the hit-man's last meeting with a Butler. _His _Butler, to be precise. The man had a score to settle.

The rest of the men surrounding them ranged from ex-protectors of Carker to gang-members he'd had dealings with in the past - most of which were here for a considerable fee. He wasn't taking any chances with brand-new employees. Not after last time Fowl had gotten his dogs into Carker's camp, so to speak.

"He's... the last time I saw him... he was trapped under part of the ceiling in the restaurant," Artemis said, still truthfully.

"Did it look like he could get out?"

Artemis carried on with his plan, realising with a horrible jolt that what he was saying was genuinely the truth again. He choked back the lump in his throat. Fowls don't cry. Especially not in front of their enemies.

"No," he whispered quietly.

"What was that?"

"No," Artemis's voice cracked and he swallowed furiously, a single rebellious tear rolling down his face. "He couldn't get out. He was stuck under one of the beams and we had to leave him."

"Aww, you know what, Drake?" the boss turned to his right-hand man. "I think he's telling the truth. Look, tears and everything, poor ickle baba."

Carker's laughter was echoed by the rest of his henchmen now.

"Stop blubbing kid. Even if your daddy's dead you'll make it out alive as long as someone pays up for you," Carker barked another laugh. "Assuming someone gives enough of a shit to want you both back."

Angeline thought about who would pay the ransom. No-one else had the codes to the bank-accounts except for her and her husband. Artemis. _Her Timmy_. She felt her eyes well up. She'd been so horrible to him. What if that was the last time she ever saw him alive?

"Meanwhile, you two are just going to have to sit back and wait, aren't you?" Carker sniggered, getting to his feet and clicking his fingers for the rest of them to follow. "Who wants to babysit first? Two hour stints."

No one volunteered.

"What? No-one wants to have a little fun with our guests?" he asked innocently.

A few men stepped forward after a second of contemplation.

"I thought so," he laughed, picking out a pair.

The two Fowl's felt a cold dread settle over them.

"Try not to break anything," he drawled, gesturing the remaining men to follow him as he left. Six sets of feet trod up the stairs and out of the building, the single bulb on the ceiling swung gently as the upstairs door closed with a jangle of chimes.

One of the two men left behind turned to their captives, yellowed teeth of a nasty grin reflecting the light.

"Well aren't we going to have an interesting few hours?"

* * *

><p>Butler broke free of the grip someone had on his arm and crashed through the front door. The Major had the driver's side window rolled down for better visibility and he shouted out of it.<p>

"What took you?"

Then the door flew open again and ten or more police officers tumbled out of it.

"Just drive!" Butler yelled, easily outrunning the crowd of officers following him across the ornamental garden. His uncle spurred the car into action and it shot backwards. Butler slid over the bonnet and wrenched open the passenger-side door.

"Go right!" he shouted, slamming the door behind him and chucking the notepad into the footwell.

Butler would have obeyed an order from his uncle instantly, and luckily, even though he'd already pushed his luck tonight disobeying and ordering around his superior, for once in his life, his uncle obeyed _him_.

They flew backwards, before The Major wrenched the car into first gear and floored the accelerator. It would take at least a few seconds for the police to get into their own cars.

"Hold onto something," he said, a little belatedly as he straightened out of the weave round a slow moving car that had already sent his passenger crashing into the door frame.

Butler shook the dazed feeling out of his head and un-holstered his gun, flicking off the safety as sirens started up behind them.

"As long as they don't call a 'copter on us we're ok, don't shoot anything unnecessarily," The Major said, confident enough on his driving abilities to get them out of there without causing too much more of a scene. He also had a nasty feeling they'd be needing their ammo for later.

Their speed crept up as the road ahead cleared in a flurry of horns and rude gestures. They were coming up to a junction.

"Any ideas?"

"What?" Butler asked, frowning, simultaneously trying to keep an eye on the blue-lights following them and twist round to see what the hell his uncle was going on about.

"Well you seemed pretty damn certain we should be going this way," his uncle grunted, fitting his beloved car through a gap he wouldn't even have _considered_ under usual circumstances.

"That was different," Butler said with his head out of his side window like a giant dog. A bullet whizzed past and his uncle pulled the back of his jacket, concurrently flicking on an indictor and then swinging the opposite way at the last second, choosing a direction for himself. Butler almost landed in his lap, throwing himself the other way just in time to avoid what would have been a rather embarrassing situation to be honest.

"Close the window. You're no good to me with bullet in your skull," The Major muttered as the police drew closer. "And belt up while I shake these idiots."

Butler wisely obeyed.

* * *

><p>"Leave her be," the other man sat on one of the crates sighed.<p>

"But the boss said to have fun," the man whined, taking his hand off Angeline's chin.

"Yeah, but if this all goes tits up I'd rather be one of the _good_ bad guys."

"Yeah right. You heard Carker. This is finished. All we need is Fowl's body and the ransom money and we're home free."

"Exactly. Who says Fowl and his oh-so-terrible-twosome are dead?"

"Don't be such a spoil sport Mickey," the other one laughed.

"I don't like filling in police forms that's all. And I don't want to have to write a witness statement."

"You won't. For God's sake just..."

"Well at least lay off her for the kid's sake."

Artemis and Angeline clung together like frightened, captive animals.

"You're such a friggin' goody two shoes, aint ya, Mouse?" he sighed, kicking a row of sacks so that the end one fell over. "You're lucky he's here sweetheart," he added sickeningly to Angeline.

She jutted her chin defiantly but couldn't say anything because of the replaced tape. She wasn't sure what to say anyway. She wanted to cover her son's ears, his eyes, anything to protect him from these evil people, never mind herself. Thank God for the spark of decency buried in some.

She knew her husband would have swapped himself for his son without a second thought. Or at least she was almost sure he would.

_Then he'd be killed immediately. If he isn't dead already. Like Butler will undoubtedly be by now. And probably The Major too._

She forced herself to stop thinking such morbid thoughts. After all, she had heard both Butlers reciting to their sister more than once the confusing proverb, likely made up by themselves, '_Don't assume I'm dead until I am.'_

She could only hope against hope that she was wrong to presume. She settled more comfortably against the wall. If comfortably could be used to describe the back-jarring surface. Artemis snuggled next to her in a rare moment of fear-induced affection.

She couldn't help doubting that they'd ever be found down here. Wherever it was that they actually were.

* * *

><p>You know you've stopped very quickly indeed when the needle on the speedometer is still dropping from nudging the triple figures and you're already still.<p>

That, and the fact that your head just came millimetres from making an interestingly face-shaped dent in the windshield as the car's super-brakes got to work, should give you a clue. And the small matter that, without you bracing your hand against the side window, your head, complete with look of adrenaline fuelled thrill, would likely have gone through that as well, as the car slid sideways at an apparently uncontrollable angle to a standstill _exactly_ where it needed to be.

Oh, and your uncle is smirking as three police cars fly past with their not-so-super brakes squealing and smoking as they don't stop in time.

Yes, it was a combination of these things, told Butler how fast they'd just stopped.

Apparently, even with chipped tyres, the car could still reach around half of its potential agility with ease.

The Major, not even slightly shaken by nearly ploughing into the side of a lorry crossing a junction at the same time, had a similar look of crazed delight on his face and even let out a rare barking laugh as the last police-car narrowly avoided slamming into them.

"Pursuit trained my arse," he snorted. "Couldn't pursue a hamster in a wheel."

Butler, also well -to unpredictable and dangerous driving, had a serious urge to whoop like a teenager on a roller coaster as his uncle sped them to the left, leaving behind a scene from a traffic officer's nightmare. Cars scattered as the lorry jack -knifed, trying to avoid hitting them. The back end of the trailer swept round, only just clipping their wing-mirror as they squeezed through the impossibly tight gap before it completely closed off the street they had escaped down.

It'd take the police at least half an hour to completely clear the path and follow them. Plenty of time for two Butlers to vanish.

The one-working tail-light of the Bentley disappeared into the distance, leaving behind an array of vehicles looking as though a giant toddler had rampaged across the city, throwing its toys.

Both Butlers breathed out slowly and the younger loosened his seatbelt, an almost undetectable smirk on his face.

"What're you grinning at?" The Major asked, raising an eyebrow, his own lips twitching in mild amusement.

"Seven years bad luck, that," Butler commented, gesturing at the smashed mirror.

The smile vanished.

"Shut your trap," The Major grumbled.

* * *

><p><strong>Ah well, he wasn't smiling at your awesome driving then, Major... haha :)<strong>

**Yeah, updates will probably be slower now :/ Sorrrwwy. Hopefully still get 1 every 2 days at least. But I might be fibbing either way, one a day, or one every three or... well you know. I can't see the future.**

**Hope that everyone has a Remembrance Day even half as worthy of those we are remembering.**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O**


	7. Play Your Cards Right

**Thanks to:**

*** KKCopper ***

*** Beckett Simpleton ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** tech17 ***

**for the reviews / smile dosages.**

**Juliet's in this chappie :) Couldn't have a fic without her now, could we?**

**One monster-long chappie coming up - Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 7 - Play Your Cards Right<strong>

**_Flashback_**

_Butler was inclined to go for the second option. The police had probably cut the power try to stop them from escaping once they realised they weren't in whatever was left of Carker's office. And the only thing **worse** than being trapped in a small box with a man who wanted to kill three of them, was being trapped in a small__** dark**__ box where it was impossible to __**see**__ the man determined to kill them._

_In the end he didn't need to find Drake. Drake's fist found him. Forcibly._

_Somehow Butler managed to stay fully conscious and alert enough to return the attack. _

"_Stop it!"_

_No one knew who had shouted, but it didn't matter, since no-one was listening. Butler drew on his training and focused on his other senses. Madam Ko really did train them for everything. Hand-to-hand combat, enclosed combat, blind combat. Although all three together was something of a novelty. _

_Someone was going to get crushed if they weren't careful._

_He slammed Drake against the wall then ducked low. Drake lunged for his invisible foe and it was over in a second. Butler stopped, confused. He hadn't done anything. Drake fell to the floor with a thud, almost squashing someone who yelped. Butler's bodyguard side didn't recognise the cry as someone he was responsible for and so he simply stayed poised to react in case Drake wasn't entirely out._

"_Drake? Is that you?"_

"_I sincerely hope so," Fowl muttered._

_Butler deduced that The Major must've had a hand (literally) in the incapacitating, since Mr. Fowl couldn't muster the strength or skill to knock out a drunken house-mouse._

_There was a noise like a giant can opener and a draft of air filled the stuffy box._

"_Luc**-ky** us," The Major muttered, shining a torch into the gap and cranking open the door a little further. He had completely ruined a perfectly good knife, bending it about to open the double set of doors enough to get his fingers between them, but at least the powercut meant that the doors weren't magnetised shut and were fairly simple to haul apart. __And although the lift hadn't stopped anywhere near where it was supposed to, it hadn't stopped half-way down a floor, either. There was a gap about two-feet high, then a drop of around five before the floor. It was going to be a bit of a squeeze._

"_Major? What are you..." Artemis started, uncertainly._

"_Lie down, please."_

"_Why?" Artemis asked, kneeling._

_His bodyguard breathed in deeply, squeezed through the gap and dropped down the side of the open door, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him through the narrow gap after him, away from falling down the elevator shaft to his death. Butler followed quickly, sliding his body through the small rectangle of space with some difficulty. But when the fourth man tried to follow, The Major shoved him back, shining the torch into his face._

"_**Don't **__follow us."_

"_What! You can't just __**leave**__ me here."_

_"In case you haven't already realised; you're not my problem," The Major said coldly and led the way towards the fire exit._

"_What floor are we on?" The Major's real 'problem' asked, already out of breath after the few seconds of fast walking._

"_Not relevant. We're won't be jumping today if we can help it."_

_Artemis nearly stopped dead in his tracks in shock.** Jumping was a genuine consideration?**_

"_I was meaning for how many stairs we will be running down, actually," his said, laughing nervously. _

_**The man's joking,**__ he decided. _

_He wasn't._

"_We're using the fire exit," The Major clarified, shining a torch around a corridor corner before turning his head quickly to check Butler had them covered at the back. The younger Butler had another torch kept checking behind them. He did not want to be snuck up on by Drake. Or anyone else for that matter._

"_Won't the police be..." Mr. Fowl began to ask, a thought striking him. The police would likely have the building surrounded._

"_Probably, sir, but then we'll just have to improvise," The Major said tersely._

_Artemis looked worried. Then again, after thirty-odd years of partnership, he was still no fonder of his Butler's idea of 'improvising' than he had been the first time._

_For a reason Fowl would find out shortly, The Major's nephew didn't look very pleased at the prospect either..._

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

The Bentley pulled down a side-road at a much more modest speed, as inconspicuous as a giant, beaten-up thing can be. Rather a lot like its occupants, really.

"Why right?" The Major asked after a few seconds of quiet driving.

Butler rootled in his pocket and held up his earlier find.

"That's why right," he said, chucking the ornate timepiece onto the dashboard. "I found it next to some tyre tracks the way we went. Missus Fowl is smarter than people give her credit for."

The Major grunted reluctantly. "Good work."

Butler's shoulders straightened unconsciously at the rare praise and The Major smirked at the reaction.

_Apparently my approval still means something to the boy,_ he mused, picking out an alleyway to turn down up ahead.

"Don't think that's an OK to start trying to run the joint, hotshot," he warned aloud, mockingly.

Butler raised his hands mock-submissively. "No sir."

"And if you slide over the bonnet like that again the repaint is coming out of _your _paycheck."

_Same old Major,_ thought Butler. No matter what condition the car was in, if he made it any worse, he'd be paying for the damage. All running-into-the-thousands-of-pounds-worth of it.

"Yes, Uncle," he sighed.

The Major pulled them down a dark, narrow alley that opened up into a carpark surrounded by privately owned garages, presumably belonging to the flats above.

Hands loosening on the wheel, he leant back and drew them to a steady stop.

"Now what?" Butler muttered quietly.

"My thoughts exactly, nephew."

"I suppose we better call Juliet. Let her know we're not dead."

"Hmm."

Butler took out his phone. The casing was a little cracked and the screen was _a lot_ buggered, but it should still work. He scrolled through the list of names on the smashed screen, squinting and resorting to memory to guess how far down her number was.

"_Hello, oh dearest brother of mine_," the pre-teen answered sarcastically. Well, at least he'd rung the right person then.

"Hey Jules," Butler rolled his eyes. Apparently she was still peeved at him for not letting her come. A good decision, as it had turned out.

"_What's up with your phone? It's all fuzzy_."

"Uh... I landed on it probably," he admitted.

"_You sat on it you mean - eejit_."

"No, I fell on it," he corrected her. "When a part of the ceiling fell on me..."

"_Part of the **what**? Jeez Dom, are you OK? Please tell me you didn't cause that blown up building on the tele..._"

"Not _cause _exactly...Look - ignore what's on the news, we're all alive," he told her. "Me and Uncle are going to find Little Artemis and Mrs. Fowl."

"_Find them? How'd you __**lose **__them_?"

"Long story. I'll tell you when I get back. Tell security not to let anyone through the main gates, even if it looks like us, until I tell you to let us in ok."

"_You do realise that made little sense, big bro_."

"Juliet! Did you understand what I said?" Butler sighed heavily through his nose, scrunching his forehead with massive knuckles. Somehow he regularly kept his cool through gunfire, explosions, furious arguments, car-chases, life and death fights and, today, even losing his charge, yet _still_ nothing could infuriate him like his little sister.

"_Yup. Don't let anyone in, even if it's you, unless it's you, telling me it's you and to let you in, right?_"

"That'll do," he sighed. "I don't know how long we'll be gone. Might not even be back tonight. Tell me if anything happens at your end, OK?"

_"Yeah - are you though?"_

"What?"

_"Are you OK? You sound really..."_

"I'll be_ fine_, Jules."

Juliet paused on the other end of the line, a retort on the tip of her tongue. But even she knew not to push it when her brother used _that_ tone.

"_OK. Be careful, then. I loves ya, ya big numbskull_."

"Will do."

"_You're not going to say 'love you too' because uncle's listening isn't he?_"

"Yes, but... yeah," Butler grunted. "You too."

"'_Kay, ring me when you find them_."

"Will do," he repeated, cutting the call.

"What did she say? Anything happened at the manor?"

"She's fine. Nothing's happened back home either and I've told her to tell them not to let anyone in so they should be on alert."

His uncle '_humph_ed', unconvinced. "About as alert as a dead meerkat that lot are."

"Guess not everyone's as good us blue-diamonds," Butler shrugged jokingly.

His uncle smirked. "Perhaps not."

They both knew the excessive humour was all a cover for the stress they were both under. Both their charges were definitely _not _safe. Not by their sides. They didn't even have an exact location, let alone visual on them. Madam Ko would have ripped off both their diamonds with her bare fingernails for sure if she found out. Yet, if they let it show how much it was bothering them, they'd be at eachother's throats within minutes and that wouldn't help anything or anyone. Especially since the only thing they had over the enemy was that there were two of them and no matter how many kidnappers there were, the pair were fairly confident they could take them on if they worked together.

"So, do we have a plan yet?"

"For a start we need to park up the car somewhere safe."

"Do you want me to crack open one of these garages?" Butler asked, unclipping his belt. He opened the door and the glare from a streetlight shone onto the black notepad, still in the footwell. He handed it to his uncle. "You might want to take a look at this."

"If they don't look like they're alarmed then go open a few," The Major said, taking the pad and flicking through to the appropriate pages. "See if you can find an empty one. I can't be bothered pushing cars around at this time of night."

Taking that as a '_Yes, please', _Butler climbed out of the car, leaning on the doorframe as he did so and wincing - more in surprise than pain - at the stab of discomfort somewhere in the region of his tricep. _Ouch. _He'd completely forgotten about his arm.

"You want me to take a look at that?" The Major asked, looking up from the scribbled notes.

"Hmm?" Butler feigned ignorance, stretching all his limbs as though to show that he was perfectly healthy.

"Your arm," his uncle raised an eyebrow knowingly.

"Oh that?" Butler shrugged stubbornly. "That's fine. Just a graze."

Unfortunately, _all_ of his family knew him all too well.

"Fine. Then you won't mind me taking a look at this 'graze' when you get back," The Major said bluntly, just as persistent.

Butler grumbled in annoyance as he jogged over to the nearest garage. First, he ran his hand round the edge of the door. It was flip up, so the lock should be easy to pick. After establishing it wasn't alarmed, or at least as best he could from this side, he pulled out his pick-wallet and chose one of the thin strips of metal and, after fiddling with the lock for a few seconds, pulled the door up.

_No good. _

A motorbike and a trailer were crammed in side-by-side. He closed and locked it, taking more time with the second one he chose.

A helicopter buzzed somewhere not too far away. He sped up.

Looking for the oldest, most unused-looking, since the more regularly opened doors probably concealed the cars of the people living above, he fidgeted with a lock again and quickly succeeded in opening it. The door screeched, annoyingly loud in the constant dim chatter of the city. But... _Bingo_. A used painting kit, set of ladders, couple of gallons-worth of opened paint and some old sheets were stacked against the back wall of the otherwise empty space. All seemingly hadn't been touched in years. He gestured the car over.

"Think it'll fit?" he mouthed through the cracked windshield.

His uncle snorted, pulling the car alongside his nephew millimetres from crushing the younger man's feet. _Fitted_, was perhaps an overstatement, but the Bentley left just enough room for The Major to squeeze out without a scrape of paint. He grabbed a torch from under the seat and looked around for a light-switch. Soon the room was filled with a steadily growing glow as the eco-bulb warmed-up.

Butler heaved the door down, blocking out the outside light and hiding the irritation it caused to the _'graze'_ on his arm. Badly, apparently.

"Right, come here," his uncle said, sliding down the side of the car and trying to ignore the indents the bullets had left in the still-shining panelling. "Show me."

He knew his nephew well. If he was wincing, a lesser man might be sobbing.

Butler grudgingly shrugged off his jacket and held still, allowing his uncle to cut the tape with one of his knives and poke at the narrow line of the still seeping wound. Ripping off the rest of the tape did indeed hurt. Not that he was going to tell his uncle that.

"Hmm. Could do with stitches probably."

"Yup," Butler grunted reluctantly, definitely _not_ looking forward to what was coming next.

The following ten minuets or so were spent staring at the ceiling and humming to himself whilst his uncle cleaned the gouge out of his arms with his usual firm and not-so-gentle touch and stitched it neatly with a needle and thread from the first aid kit. He bit his tongue as The Major pulled the last stitch tight and tied it off. Of course, him being him, he had to finish with a good solid pat to his handiwork.

"Good as new."

"Thanks," Butler said, without too much sarcasm. "Now let me look at your forehead."

"I've sorted it."

"So had I!" Butler protested. "Look, I'll glue it up and you won't have to go round looking like a reject from the _Pirates of the Caribbean_."

"From the what?" The Major frowned, facial muscles twitching as the expression split the cut further.

"You know the... nevermind."

Butler decided that now was not the time to start explaining the plot of the film Juliet had dragged him and Artemis Junior along to see at the cinema, so instead he took out the small tube of skin-glue, flexing his sewn-up muscle experimentally. The Major, despite being just as annoyed at being patched up by his nephew as had been the reverse had been a few moments ago, leant on the bonnet of his car patiently as Butler carefully wiped away the crusted blood and filled the split of skin with surgical glue, pinching it together carefully so as not to end up stuck to his uncle.

_Which would have been another flaming hassle coupled to everything else we've got to deal with,_ thought The Major.

Perhaps they should both be wearing some sort of gloves, but it hardly mattered. They both had the same blood type anyway and no blood-carried diseases they could trade.

"Right," The Major talked whilst the glue was drying. "To business. The men that took the Fowls from the station don't sound particularly familiar. No obvious tats or anything, or at least none the woman noticed."

"So it wasn't Drake at the station, then," Butler noted, pulling his jacket back on. "But Carker's still a big suspect."

"Admittedly. But we can't single him out. He's not the only one who wants rid of Artemis."

_Huh, _Butler thought. _You don't need to tell me that._

His phone buzzed weakly. It too had had a hard night. The screen lit up with a text from Juliet. He had to squint to read it but he was fairly sure it said:

_**Ru in the Bently? x**_

He read it aloud and replied: _**Yes why?**_

_**Good :) x**_

No more texts came through, but the car-phone rang shrilly. The Major leant through the open window and unhooked it.

_"I'm glad you still have the car because your phone is seriously screwed. You sound like you're inside a crisp packet,"_ Juliet immediately started talking.

"Juliet?"

_"Oh, hey Uncle," _Juliet was one of the very few people who could tell her family's guttural tones apart._ "You know how you taught me to record calls and stuff? Well I came downstairs just now to get one of the Sigs from the cupboard. You know, just in case anything happens. And anyway, Harvey on security was just answering the phone so I pressed that button you showed me and recorded this. And how good are we? We even traced it to a phonebox and everything."_

The Major rolled his eyes. As _'good'_ as that was, Juliet was babbling, which meant the call was _not_ 'good' news. "Give it to me then."

_"OK... er... it's the button with..."_

There was some fumbling and clicking and The Major had time to put the phone on loudspeaker.

A voice echoed out of the Bentley's sound system.

_"…take a message?"_ Harvey from security asked. Obviously they had just missed the 'Hello, Fowl Residence, may I…' part.

_"May you take a message?"_ a voice laughed. _"Well, yes I suppose you can."_

_"Who is this?"_

_"It doesn't matter. I have Fowl's wife and son."_

_"What do you want?"_

_"I want..."_ the man seemed to consider. _"I want proof Fowl and his personal soldier-boys aren't coming back. Other than that, I want money and then maybe I'll let these two go."_

Butler raised an eyebrow. "'Soldier-boys'?"

The Major '_shush_ed' him silently.

_"How much?"_

_"How much? The bodies of Fowl and the two brutes and £100 million should settle it."_

_"The ransom I can give. As for the bodies, I am not aware that any of them are dead."_

_"Oh they'll turn up. If they're alive I'll swap one person for two of yours and who knows, I might give you both of them for all three, alive or dead. And the money, of course."_

_"Is there a contact number I can take?"_

_"No. I'll call you. All you have to do is collect what I want and swap it when I say so."_

_"Where's the proof you have who you say you have?"_

_Good call,_ thought Butler.

_"You have call tracing abilities I presume? The proof is on a camera in a box which I will leave where I am now."_

_"You won't just send it to us?"_

_"Now that would be too easy,"_ the voice laughed. _"And not half as fun."_

The call beeped.

"That was Carker's voice," Butler said firmly.

"Agreed," The Major muttered. "And the same amount of money Artemis took from him in the first place."

_"So what you gonna do? You can't swap yourselves and where is Mr. Fowl anyway?"_ Juliet asked.

"He's safe, as far as we know. Can't say much in case people are hacking into these calls."

_"And you two?"_

"We're both fine. Don't worry about us, Jules," Butler called over from the boot where he was searching for something.

_"You want to know the postcode we tracked it to?"_

"Shoot," said The Major, pulling a pen out of his jacket and writing the area code on the back of his hand. He'd put it into the Bentley's satellite navigation system and then draw out a route.

_"Good luck then."_

"Luck's got nothing to do with it," The Major said, a little harshly. Then he sighed, the softening of his tones almost indiscernible. "Make sure you're alert, won't you? That team's not all there without a Butler watching over them."

_"Yessir,"_ Juliet rattled out, practically bursting with pride.

"Oh and Juliet?"

_"Yes, Uncle?"_

"You're a better shot with that Beretta that's in the gun store. And make sure the safety's on _properly_ before you put it under your pillow. I don't want a repeat of last time..."

_"Yes, Uncle,"_ Juliet repeated in an embarrassed mutter._ "See you later."_

"See you later."

Fairly confident his niece was well-armed enough and wasn't going to blow another hole in her bedroom wall, The Major hung up.

_A paper map would be easier,_ he thought, leaning through the window awkwardly and typing the postcode onto the touch-screen. _It would be easier with a set of good old co-ordinates, or a nice 8-figure grid-reference._

Old school, admittedly. But he wasn't entirely sure whether the system was smart enough to search for possible kidnapping dens in the surrounding area by itself.

"What was all that about?" Butler asked, still rooting in the back of the car.

"Juliet? She wanted a gun to sleep with. I told her the Beretta suited her better..."

"Than the Sig, right?" Butler completed.

"Yes."

"Thought so. She want's it because we both have one. Says the Beretta sounds girly."

"A girly sounding gun indeed," The Major muttered, working out a route on the built in sat-nav.

"That's Juliet for you," Butler shrugged.

"That Beretta's neat," The Major said, as though his opinion meant the end of the discussion. "And what are you scavenging about for?"

"I was guessing you'd want this?" Butler said, holding up a road-map.

The Major nodded, a steely smile appearing on his face. Not quite as good as a landranger map, but close enough.

Carker had made a mistake giving them a lead like this. But if they played their own cards right...

* * *

><p>Artemis Senior awoke with a start.<p>

He had been drifting in and out of conciousness since they moved him upstairs to a ward. If it wasn't so essential that no-one knew who he was, he would have immediately demanded to be moved to a private room. As it was, he had to put up with the three other occupants: a man in his seventies with a case of bronchitis who kept coughing loudly and hoarsely at regular intervals, a (presumably) drunken man, barely more than a teenager (whom Mr. Fowl was certain was unconscious since he didn't even flinch at the raucous noise the pensioner was making) and the waiter Butler had returned the favour of rescuing from the restaurant. Not that Artemis knew that fact about the latter.

"Hey, you alright, mate?"

Fowl looked over to see the moustachioed man looking at him with concern in his eyes. Artemis had never met him before in his life and wondered why he was being so kind to him. He thought about being suspicious...

"You were at the restaurant right?_ The Skylight_?" the man continued when he didn't say anything. "I was too - I work there. Or well, _worked,_ I should say. There's not much left of it from what I hear."

Artemis decided to seem interested. Who knew how long he would be here before The Major found him? And it would be a nice change to have company that wasn't only talking to him either to ask for his money, threaten to kill him, or both.

"My sympathies," he said. "How did you get out?"

"Well I don't really know to be honest," the waiter shrugged. "I was helping this dude who was under some rubble then I don't remember much. I'm pretty sure he carried me out though. We both owe our lives to those guys."

"Ah... _guys_?" Artemis repeated, although he was fairly sure he knew who these 'guys' had been.

"Yeah, brothers or summit by the looks of 'em," said the waiter. "Unless I was seeing double of course - I smacked my head pretty hard on something."

The man laughed and Mr. Fowl chuckled politely, smirking for another reason. _Brothers, eh?_ The Major would be pleased with that comment. Butler, not so much perhaps...

"Did they say who they were?"

"I dunno," the man admitted. "I kinda conked out for a bit. How'd you get out? Other than by one half of the anonymous-giant-bald-superheroes team?"

"I'm not so sure. I was running through the kitchen with my b... best friend and then next thing I know I'm getting wheeled out of an ambulance," Artemis congratulated himself on the save, which he covered with a genuine smoky cough. Saying 'bodyguard' could have prompted some awkward questions from his new acquaintance. Besides, it was the truth. The Major _was_ his best friend. Or at least one of the only friends he had that wouldn't stab him in the back at a second's notice for a business deal...

"Same. I don't remember anything about the stairs. I hope your mate got out ok."

"I'm fairly sure he did," Artemis smiled.

The man on the opposite side of the ward to them coughed heavily again and they both looked over.

"Hey, seen as though we're not gonna get much sleep with him busting a lung over there, wanna play cards?"

"Why? Do you have a deck?"

"'Course I do. We're not supposed to, but we always play a quick game of 'Rummy' or something in the back on our breaks," the waiter grinned. "I'm Gary, by the way."

"Call me Tim," said Artemis Fowl.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, this chapter is the longest so far. It <em>was<em> nearly 6,000 words so I had to chop it into two bits. But hey, that means more chapters right? So woop, yeah? :)**

**And yes, the Bentley has a car-phone. You'll just have to go with me on that one. (I nearly gave it rockets shooting out of the exhaust pipe but I thought that would be a little OTT. A simple telephone is a huge come-down from that...)**

**If anyone's interested apparently 'Madam' is the way to spell it for a figure of authority (i.e. Ko or Fowl) and 'Madame' is just 'Mrs' in French ('ma dame' pretty much meaning 'my lady').**

**And please excuse my botched medical knowledge both now and later. Particularly _later_, but we'll come to that...**

**Thanks for reading, hope you're enjoying it!**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O**


	8. Coincidental Explosions

**Thanks to:**

*** tech17 ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** KKCopper ***

*** Beckett Simpleton ***

*** 2whitie ***

**for the reviews. You guys make it all worth it :)**

**Right, then. Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER EIGHT - Coincidental Explosions<strong>

_**Flashback**_

_This, Butler decided as he sprinted down the road. Was payback for being such a... well, for not following training protocol for starters._

"_Stop where you are!"_

_"I said stop!"_

_"STOP!"_

_When the third taser barely missed him as he leapt onto a parked car and over a garden wall, Butler seriously hoped that his distraction was worth it and the others were on their way to Fowl Manor by now._

_Little did he know, The Major and Mr. Fowl were currently crouched down and hiding amongst the overflow of a rubbish skip. A rather degrading situation for a European Crimelord to be in, to be honest. Artemis didn't think that now was the time to be complaining about their choice of concealment, so instead he took a breath of the scent-saturated air and began to speak hesitantly._

"_Major? I'd just like to say... well... that I really am sorry that..."_

"_Apology accepted, Artemis," The Major sighed, checking the coast was clear before standing up and escorting his charge away from the narrow alleyway. The police officers left outside were so preoccupied with their escaping suspect that n__o-one noticed them slip into the shadows of the building across the road and casually walk away into the city night. They were covered in dust from the explosion and if anybody spotted them before they reached the crowds of night-club customers there would be some questions to answer. After that, there shouldn't be much of a problem. Most of the population of the city streets would be either asleep or pissed as farts by now, either way, they weren't going to be quizzing them on the state of the two men's attire._

"_Where are we going?" Artemis asked, struggling to keep up with his bodyguard's long strides._

_The man only walked like this in situations that required it and Artemis gave little thought to the fact that this was the speed that The Major would prefer to travel at all times when on foot, rather than be reduced to the crawl he was forced to slow to for his charge's everyday pace._

"_Firstly? Away from here."_

"_And then?" Artemis pushed._

"_We'll get a taxi to the manor."_

"_And Butler?"_

"_Will find his own way back."_

_Artemis thought it a little strange that The Major didn't seem to care that his nephew was currently being chased by police. Then again, he probably just wasn't worried, confident enough of his nephew's abilities not to be troubled by such trivial matters. They were Butlers after all._

_As they made their way into the centre, the general riff-raff of the city were making the most of the absence of the local police. The pair attracted even more attention than usual, striding along as they were, one huge, one short and slight, and both covered in a considerable layer of grey concrete dust. The Major had to draw himself up to his full height and dish out glares more than once. A rowdy group of lads bustled past them and one thought it would be funny to lunge and holler in Artemis's face. Although he didn't find **that** remotely amusing, Fowl had to admit that the way the yell petered out and the man's face paled when The Major leered at him and shoved him __one-handedly __onto his backside into the gutter certainly __**was**__._

_They were given a wide berth after that and soon The Major deemed them far enough away to slow his fast-paced walk and take out his mobile, calling a taxi._

_Back in the building they had just come from, Carker had somehow succeeded in escaping from the lift without death or serious injury. He felt a twinge of guilt leaving Drake behind, but whatever one of the traitors had done to him had knocked the man out for the count and he couldn't rouse the giant. He was alive, but there was no possibility of James **carrying** him. Drake would forgive him later when he bailed him from prison. Hopefully... _

_**And besides,** he thought, as he headed for what he hoped were the stairs to the exit in the nearly pitch-black darkness. **It isn't as though I can't do ****anything ****_without my bodyguard. I'm not completely useless._ **_

_And that was why, when the police found him twenty minutes later, Carker was **still** wandering around the dark third floor corridors cursing his horrible sense of direction and the day he met Artemis Fowl._

_Meanwhile, Butler was still running. He'd made his was over fences and walls into the maze of gardens, his height giving him an advantage and the police giving up the chase after a short while to call in back-up. The last garden he had leapt the wall of had contained a rather large dog and he had been forced to stare it down before he could move on - a trick that only worked if you looked big enough and bad enough to take on whatever was staring right back at you. Butler had a feeling that the people that normally ended up in that dog's territory didn't usually get out in one piece. As it was he had managed to walk sideways to the fence and jump it, the dog leaping up, snarling and snapping after him as soon as their joint gaze broke. He landed on a gravelled path lining a waterway and took a second to get his bearings before setting off again at a jog._

_Despite the delay, he knew he could get away easily enough on foot, it just depended on whether they brought the helicopter out **before** he managed to vanish. Madam Ko had never taught them how to neutralise their own body heat. Which was a shame really, since it would be a useful trick and it wasn't as if she hadn't taught them plenty of other things generally considered to be impossible. Behind him dogs started up baying. Likely Police ones this time. They were on his trail. Butler continued running alongside the wide stretch of browned and foul-smelling stagnant water__ glancing at it reluctantly. Juliet would have a field day when she heard about this later._

_Fortunately, Madam Ko **had** covered escaping from tracker dogs in the second term. __**Un**fortunately, the procedure was going to involve the canal..._

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

A few minuets later, co-ordinates for the phonebox found, the two elder Butlers set off cautiously.

Given that wearing suits in this area of the city would seem suspicious, not to mention delay them whilst they got rid of the abuse they'd get from the locals, they changed into spare clothes from the boot. Slightly less conspicuous now in jeans and jumpers, but just as well armed, they found the phonebox within the hour.

The box looked oddly sinister, stood just out of the circle of yellow cast by a steetlight across the road. It was almost like seeing a person you knew to be an assassin, standing casually at a street corner, blending in and pretending to be an passer-by. Perfectly innocent, expect that you knew that they weren't.

There was a car parked just metres away. It wouldn't be Carker. He wasn't stupid enough to call from a seemingly anonymous call box, then hang-up and hang around to wait for them to turn up.

The Major cocked his gun cautiously. "This is too suspicious. That car's got cameras, if not explosives, in it."

"I've got eyeball on a box in the phone booth. Could be anything though."

"Hmm. I reckon Carker would be one to taunt, to be honest. He said 'camera'. Perhaps it's some sort of photographic message. Could be something we don't want to see."

Butler wasn't too convinced that it would be something as benign as a camera, but he had to admit his uncle was probably right about Carker.

"Now more than likely, the second we get close to that thing it's going to blow up in our faces."

"So...?" Butler asked, hoping this was one of those moment's where The Major was about to come out with a brilliant plan.

"_So_, first we work out whether there's anybody watching or whether it's just a proximity explosive."

Butler nodded. Of course, there was the chance it was just a coincidentally parked car, but in the bodyguarding world, it didn't pay to rely on coincidences.

_Coincidence rhymes with explosive,_ Madame Ko had said sternly.

Her first years had looked at her confusedly until one had plucked up the courage to say _'Not in English, m'am'_. He had been hit over the head with a stick for that and their sensei had continued regardless.

_Perhaps not, but it does with ignorance and incidents, and so it might as well do._

None of the students had ever really got the point of that speech, most probably because there wasn't one. But they remembered it, which had been Ko's only intention in the first place. People tended to remember things better if they didn't make sense, since they spent the rest of their lives trying to figure them out. They also remembered things better if they got hit over the head repeatedly with her cane for forgetting.

All they needed now was something other than themselves to get close enough to the car...

" 'll that do?" he asked, jerking his head at a metal dog-foul bin secured to a lamppost.

"If you can get it off," The Major said, barely taking his eyes off their surroundings. He was on high-alert, every sway of a tree branch, every flicker of movement or light had him on edge. Any stray cats walking past this stretch of the street tonight better have a few of their nine lives to spare.

Butler took one of his throwing knives out of the its sheath on the side of his boot, sawing away at the single strip of metal holding the bin to the post until it gave with a _'twang'_. They both braced themselves to run and Butler slung the stinking, red container at the car. It impacted with a bang but no following explosion occurred. The alarm however went off shrilly and they retreated quickly.

_So much for being undercover,_ The Major thought wryly.

After a few seconds, the front door of a house opened and someone leaned out of the doorway, scanning the street blearily and swearing about teenagers. But they pressed the fob of their keys and the noise shut off abruptly. Still muttering, the door slammed behind them. The disturbance didn't seem to have woken the rest of the street. Car-alarms going off at night were as common as police sirens in this part of town.

Safely hidden behind the wall of the opposite house, Butler snorted quietly. Now he looked for all the world like a drunken vandal, throwing things at cars and running away like a naughty kid.

"Well I think we can safely assume it's not a proximity bomb," The Major said dryly. "You couldn't have just _rolled _the thing close enough to check, could you?"

Butler shrugged. _Yes, _he thought. _But that wouldn't have been half as much fun. Besides, better to be certain._

"So who's going for the box?" he said instead.

The Major looked over the wall, peering best he could under the car from the other side of the street, just in case there was a tell-tale red blink of the power-light of a remotely activated explosive shining into the shadows. He said nothing.

"Want to flip for it?" Butler sighed, resorting to the age old solution to delegating unpleasant jobs.

"Do I want to leave to the whim of a piece of metal whether or not my guts end up splattered over the inside of that telephone box?" The Major asked, a little arrogantly. "No I do not. I'll do it by choice, thank-you very much."

As much as he was glad he didn't have to risk his life for, quite possibly, simply the amusement of Carker, Butler didn't particularly want to watch his uncle get blown to pieces.

"I'll do it. I've got faster reflexes," he stated, standing and fixing his eyes on his target.

"Oh really? How'd you work that one out then, _kid?_" The Major growled irritably as he clambered to his feet, using the old, submissive-sounding nickname as a warning.

Butler froze slightly, eyes sliding across from the box to his uncle's face. One wrong word here and he would be watering Mrs. Fowl's potted plants for the next six-months.

"Becau..." he was cut off mid-word when his uncle's hand flew up as though to hit him. He caught it a centimetre from his face, punching himself in the nose with the back of his own hand in the process. A trick, annoyingly, that he had fallen for more than once before. He swore uninhibitedly and The Major smirked.

"Point made?" asked the elder.

"Point taken," muttered the younger, rubbing his nose.

"I'm not old yet," The Major warned him. "Besides, I've only got notes in my wallet and they don't flip. Now cover my back."

"Yes Uncle," Butler drew his gun and settled behind the dog-mess-bin-relieved lamppost. Not that it would save him in the event of a massive explosion, but it would give him some cover at least.

The Major snapped a branch off a nearby tree and crossed the road with more confidence than he felt. He poked warily at the door with the stick, scanning the edge of the frame for trip-wires. Nothing. He cautiously opened it.

_No explosion. Good start._

He jabbed the box gently, leaning back ready to dive for cover at the slightest reaction. Nothing. Still good.

There was no way he could check for a connection that might break under the box so he decided to lift the lid, rather than move it. Inside was a modern, high-tech-looking video camcorder, the kind you can replay the last video without downloading it onto anything. Which was fortunate, since the only technological equipment they had was limited to the few things back at the Bentley and it had already wasted the best part of an hour jogging to here. Alongside the device was, well, he wasn't quite sure _what_ it was, beyond being a small black box, but it likely wasn't anything good. A red light blinked on, the pauses quickly shortening between each flash.

_Oh..._

The Major didn't waste time thinking profanities as he snatched the camera, slamming the door behind him and sprinting across the street. His nephew wisely leapt up too and they both dived back over the low garden wall, swiftly followed by... utter silence.

At this moment Juliet might have burst out laughing. _Anti-climax, much?_

But the older Butlers were trained soldiers. Far too schooled in the ways of sitting and waiting. Even so, after a minuet of calm, the pair were getting restless.

"What do you think of this?" The Major asked, handing the camera over to his nephew.

"I think that was too simple," Butler muttered, preferring to pass comment on their situation than the piece of gadgetry and getting up carefully again as he took in their surroundings. "And I think people are watching us."

And by that he didn't mean curtain-twitchers, of which there seemed to be a distinct lack of along this street. At the far end of the road was a security camera. Perhaps at the wrong angle to pick up where they were _now_, but once they moved... he clocked another three parked cars, far enough away from the phonebox to be otherwise deemed unsuspicious. Now however, _anything_ was suspicious.

He relayed his concerns to his uncle who immediately started looking for a way out. They could vault the walls, try to get into one of the back gardens. Or...

* * *

><p>Far away, in a room with one wall entirely lined with TV screens, Drake leant back from the desk on his swivel-chair and panned around with a joystick. Frustratingly, he couldn't see the targets from where the CCTV camera was placed, but picking up the camcorder had disturbed the sensitive motion-sensor in the box and armed the bombs.<p>

All he needed now was for them to trundle ignorantly past one of the armed cars and he'd be saved the trouble of killing them with his bare-hands. Of course, he was sorry they'd never know it was him that got them in the end, but everyone else would. Well, anyone that wasn't a blue-diamond. He had a feeling the group that claimed to be so 'elite' would not take kindly to him striking out two of their very best.

"Come on you cowards," he muttered. "Make a run for it."

* * *

><p>"We should make a run for it."<p>

"It's what they expect."

"Exactly. But maybe we should be predictable," The Major said thoughtfully.

"Maybe we should," Butler shrugged. Really, it wasn't his call and he would just have to go along with whatever his uncle decided. This time, however, he actually agreed. Walking towards the cars could throw whoever was detonating off, exciting them into pushing the button too early. Besides, the only ways out of the street were lined with cars that may or may not explode. It wasn't as if they had another choice to go with.

"Ready then?" The Major asked, leaping over the low wall with the agility of a man half his age.

Butler tucked the camcorder securely into his pocket, rolled his shoulders and bounced on the balls of his feet, limbering up. Like he needed to answer.

* * *

><p>"Come on. Come on you bastards... <em>move<em>," Drake growled, smirking. They'd just entered the top of the shot, walking in the fashion of men confident of their own abilities but not quite cocky enough to show it.

"Problems, Drake?" Carker asked, entering the room and standing behind his manservant.

"Quite the opposite, sir," his bodyguard chuckled, gesturing at the screen. The Butlers were walking towards the first primed bomb. _So much for the best of the best. _Soon there'd be a new top of the bodyguarding list. "We've got them right where we want them."

Carker slid into the swivel chair next to him and looked for himself. There in plain, jerking, black and white were the two unmistakable forms of the Butlers. He did not find the picture as amusing as his bodyguard.

"Is that who I think it is?"he demanded angrily. "I thought we'd got rid of them, already?"

"Apparently not, sir," Drake said cautiously. He'd expected his boss to be pleased. Whether they got them earlier or now, dead was still dead, right?

"Which button is it?" Carker snapped, grabbing the control board.

* * *

><p>"Did it occur to you this plan is suicide?" Butler said calmly following his uncle down the road. They were walking so casually they could simply have been an <em>ordinary<em> pair of relatives off to the corner shop for some Saturday night booze.

"If we look like idiots..." The Major muttered.

"They'll treat us like idiots," Butler completed. _Still, only a few more possibly explosive cars to pass as though we have no idea what they are._

"Get ready to sprint on my mark."

* * *

><p>"Sir, allow me," Drake took it back off his boss as carefully as he would take a live adder. Timing was key here and he didn't want his boss to mess things up.<p>

"Come on, look at them! They think they're home free. We'll see about that, eh?"

"Ah... yes sir."

The figures moved closer to the carbombs and Carker slapped a hand on the desk impatiently. "I want to be the one to blow those back-stabbers to smithereens. Give me the controls back."

Drake handed him the pad of detonation buttons very reluctantly in deed. After all, he too had a score to settle with these two. Well, at least he could make sure it was done right, even if not by his own hand.

"That one's for the one..." he started to explain.

"I'm not an idiot, Drake," Carker snapped, pressing the button.

* * *

><p>An explosion echoed from the street they'd first come down and behind them a lick of fire roiled into the main street.<p>

It was warning enough for them to start running.

They sprinted full tilt down the road, slaloming through the parked cars as the next explosions set off with much deadlier accuracy. Debris scattered and followed them like missiles, some clipping them as then ran, ducked, with hands over the back of their heads and necks. If the shards of metal made contact properly, they'd be more than enough to break skin... and bone.

Although they didn't know it, several miles away in the control room, Drake had snatched back the controls and was thumbing buttons with rather more skill than his boss.

Considering the years he had on his nephew, Butler was surprised to find himself only just keeping up to The Major at some points.

Funny how fast you can run when your life is at stake.

* * *

><p>Drake felt like hitting his boss.<p>

Not only was he still a little sore about the abandonment in the elevator business, the infuriating man had just nearly blown his chance of beating the Butlers once and for all.

"We got 'em!" he was crowing. "We got 'em!"

_More to the point,__** I**__ got them, _Drake thought sulkily, changing the modified CCTV to heat-seeking mode and sweeping the area. White hotspots flared from all the detonated car-bombs but there was no obvious body shapes.

"Maybe," Drake muttered. He'd have to wait until the flames died down. "Maybe."

* * *

><p>They finally they passed the security camera and ran without fire chasing them. Still, they kept at a fast paced jog, weaving through the maze of roads until they were almost certain Carker wouldn't have organised anything so far away.<p>

They stopped and Butler leant against the wall, calming his pulse and breathing quickly. His uncle panted out a chuckle and slapped him on the shoulder.

"What?" Butler frowned. Two things confused him. One, he seemed to be being hit _friendily _by his uncle. Two, the normally stoic and emotionless man was _laughing_.

"You threw a shit-bin at some civvy's car," he snorted, shaking his head.

"Says the one who spent ten minutes poking a phonebox with a stick," Butler countered.

"Hmph. Well..." his uncle began.

"It might have been," they said in unison.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright that was a shorter one but ho-hum.<strong>

**Apparently, 'alright' is a misspelling. Yet I'm pretty sure it's a word...**

**And thanks to 2whitie for the explanation on the Madam/Madame front. I've decided it will depend on what mood I'm in as to whether there are 2 or 3 vowels in the word. Eoin Colfer uses 'Madame' in the books (or at least in the three I checked) but then again he's also tried to kill off Butler at least 3 times so I'm not inclined to trust him so much...**

**Finally - a warning. The staring trick with the dog is not a good idea to try unless you are Butler and even then, it's not wise. You stare at an angry canine and they'll take it as a challenge. If you look away first, they take it as they won. Which can be painful. And messy.**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>**** O**


	9. A Dunk and A Drunk

**I'm back! Sorry for the day delay, I had assignments that I really should have been doing before now... Ah well. This is longer to make up for it. The work can wait. (Well it can't really, but that is besides the point...)**

**As usual, Thanks to my repeating reviewers:**

*** tech17 ***

*** KKCopper ***

*** Beckett Simpleton ***

*** 2whitie ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** HolidayBoredom ***

**You guys are the reason for the updates and the continuation of getting edited versions of this fic's chapters up rather than just me getting fed up and posting the draft ones to be rid of it. Ta :)**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER NINE - A Dunk and A Drunk<strong>

**_Flashback_**

_When the taxi driver turned up, he was about as impressed as Artemis about the state of their suits._

"_Look guys, I know you need a ride but..."_

"_We'll pay for the cleaning bill," Mr. Fowl snapped, forcing a £50 note into the man's hand before The Major could try his own brand of persuasion-tactics._

_The Major scowled as he held open the door and got into the car after his charge. He didn't approve of the way his boss threw his fortune around. One day, it wasn't going to end well. And besides not everyone reacted the same to money. Angeline Fowl was proof of that. It still amazed The Major to this day that the woman had shown any interest in his principal at all. One thing was for sure, any sane person would react fairly compliantly to a 'Butler-glare'. Well, it had always had a 100% success rate before…_

_The driver glanced at them in the mirror a couple of times at the pair, but soon stopped when he found himself staring into a pair of eyes darker than a starless night. He was reminded uncomfortably of horror stories. Trust him to pick up a vampire and his bodyguard._

_A mile or so from the road, another Butler was wishing intimidation worked with inanimate objects._

_Butler knew the best way to lose a tracking dog, was to cross water. However this time, he had no intention of getting wet. Note the key word here: __**intention**__._

_He jogged to the nearest footbridge and considered it critically. Obviously crossing that by foot would completely eradicate the point of crossing the water in the first place. But that didn't mean he couldn't still use it._

_With his head-start, he knew he had ample time to carry out his plan._

_Reaching the bridge, he passed it briefly, scuffing up his scent and tracks further up the tow-path. Then he spun round and stopped, pressed up against the edge of the bridge structure. He reached up and tested the strength of the thin decorative ledge that ran the length of the stonework. Not ideal, but it should hold him for long enough. Rubbing some of the concrete dust on his hands, surprised that it had proved useful in the end, he locked his fingertips into the groove and lifted his weight off the floor._

_Nothing came away in a shower of stone and brick-dust, which was a promising start._

_He shimmied across carefully, hanging by his fingertips and wasting no time in closing the distance to the other side. It would only take around six of the half-reaches he was doing. Butler grinned. Although Madam Ko often didn't approve of improvisation, preferring to rely on tried and tested methods, this one was proving to be one of his better ideas._

_Of course, you should never think that. _

_Because he was concentrating on the road directly in front of him, the first thing the taxi driver knew about the hulking shadow at the side of the road was his larger passenger's chillingly deep chuckle._

"_What is it?" Artemis asked, squinting into the night. His eyes had nowhere near the night-vision qualities of his bodyguard and so he never saw the shape that pulled itself up the chainlink fence with enviable ease and flipped over the top of the barbed-wire, snagging the expensive suit it was wearing and tearing a ribbon of material from the already wrecked jacket. They couldn't hear the foul-mouthed swearing that followed the incident, but it was nothing compared to the profanities that had found their way, along with a fair amount of canal water, out of Domovoi Butler's mouth when the very centre of the bridge decoration had come away under his grip and, despite his best efforts to the contrary, he had plummeted like a stone into the water below._

_**Not funny,**__ he told his mental Juliet who was roaring with laughter hysterically somewhere behind his furious glare. __**Very not funny.**_

"_Well would you look at that," The Major murmured, then spoke louder. "Pull over here, driver."_

_The taxi slowed to a halt reluctantly at the curbside. The dripping giant scowled at the driver with an expression that said simply __**'What the hell are you looking at?'**__ and the taxi-man stared dead-ahead, wishing he'd kept his window fully closed and leaving his passengers to do the talking._

_The rear-window rolled down and Butler found himself looking at an older (and considerably drier) reflection of himself._

"_I see you made it," The Major commented, no trace of sarcasm in his voice. Mr. Fowl inhaled in what could have been shock, but might have been a snigger. Butler decided that the taxi-driver, as the only one of his present company that he __**could**__ take his anger out on, had better stay on the right side of him. But, as he reached for the doorhandle, the man leaned a little closer to the gap in his small shield of glass and spoke up nervously._

"_Look fellars, dust'll rub off the seats, but come on... you're soaked. And to be honest you friggin' stink mate. Whatcha do? Fancy a midnight swim or summit?"_

_If looks could kill..._

"_I'm afraid to say he **is** right, Butler," Artemis Senior smirked._

_Butler didn't answer him aloud, reverting to the age-old tradition of sticking on a polite expression and mentally voicing the words pushing on the inside of your teeth._

_**It's minus four, I'm soaked, I just sprinted 5 miles so you could go for a leisurely walk to a taxi from a situation you caused and you're bothered about what?**_

_Hoping silently that the man wouldn't say anything that could be mistaken for a direct order and looking at his uncle with just a **tiny** amount of plea in his normally mercilessly dark eyes, Butler stood dripping silently onto the pavement of the road leading to one of their safe-houses._

"_How's about I pay for the suit if you beat us back home?" his uncle said, his own twinkling in a rare moment of mischief._

"_You have got to be kidding me."_

_This time Butler's true opinion voiced itself aloud._

"_It's fair," The Major shrugged._

"_It's 9 miles," Butler protested._

"_Exactly," said The Major. "You look like you could do with a nice warming jog. Carry on, driver."_

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

With no way to start tracing the Fowls and it being almost midnight, the two Butlers made their way to the nearest building with a neon sign flashing: **'FRONT DESK OPEN 24 HOURS'**.

"Who we using?" Butler asked as they stood in the shadows across the street from the motel.

"Depends if they'll take cash," The Major said, flicking through his wallet of credit cards. "If not I'll pick a name you follow."

"Right. Just... err... make sure you choose one I can be related to."

The Major raised an eyebrow. "Be_cause_?"

"We're turning up at a hotel in the middle of the night acting pretty suspiciously," Butler scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. If Juliet was right with her teasing about what people assumed about unmarried guys who looked as muscular as they did, an awkward situation could ensue. "And...er..."

"Spit it out lad."

"We're both kinda... butch," Butler muttered.

The Major raised an eyebrow before catching the meaning. "I see."

"Could be a good cover - if anyone asks," Butler sniggered, just to wind his uncle up.

"Running down a street full of car-bombs? Not a problem, nephew," The Major barked a laugh. "But _that,_ I am _not_ doing."

Butler snorted in agreement, thinking of just how far down the pan their reputations would go if a false-rumour like_ that_ got started. Top blue-diamond Butlers involved in some sort of incestuous relationship... _yeesht_. Drake wouldn't have to lift a finger to make them a laughing stock.

"Right. Here's what we'll do instead..."

They staggered into the small lobby, not only disobeying, but completely contradicting everything they had ever been taught. Although they were a few miles from the carbomb incident now and had chosen the lodgings completely at random, the pair were still considerably on edge.

The receptionist saw them coming and took a swig of coffee to waken herself up. It wasn't often rowdiness was a good sign, especially at this time of night and as she looked at her two newest customers she made sure the phone was in reach. Two huge guys with closely shaven heads and dark eyes were staggering though the door. One seemed to be very annoyed with the other who seemed to be very drunk, concussed, or possibly both. The older looking had a line of stitches above his eye and she wondered whether it was a bar-fight that had caused it. They both looked the type to have no problem stirring up trouble if they wanted to.

"I shwear..." the younger looking of the two men was mumbling loudly. "Bu' 'e starter-tit. Heh heh heh... Tit. _Tit _- geddit?"

"Shut up," the other one growled in a strong Scottish accent like his companion as he hauled him into a vague representation of upright.

"Can I help you?" she asked politely.

"Yes," the older one said with the air of one at the end of a fraying temper. He dropped the younger one to the floor with a crash. "Could I have two..."

Butler made a great show of trying to get to his feet and smacking his head on the counter, sinking back to the floor and groaning. The Major sighed.

"...make that one room, please. He'll probably kill himself if I leave him on his own... get off my leg, boy!" the last part was a genuine complaint as his nephew very nearly pulled him over for real - quite a feat.

"Are you related?" she asked, obviously noticing the family resemblance and quickly crossing off the other options.

"Unfortunately so," The Major grimaced. "He's one of my brother's kids."

The first truth in the charade.

"Then you're a good uncle taking care of him like this."

"Someone has too," The Major said, exasperatedly.

"Yurhh... youz d'bes, N'cul," Butler said, mostly incoherently, nodding contently to himself as he pulled himself up by The Major's jumper.

He then appeared to spot the receptionist, leaning one arm on the desk and considering her with unfocussed eyes.

"Hello," she said, in a tone one would use with a small child. "What's your name?"

Butler frowned as though he couldn't remember, then froze.

"M'gna hurl," he mumbled, seemingly surprised at the revelation.

"No you_ are not_. Stand up _properly_, Cailean," The Major held him steady by the scruff. "You're a disgrace to this family!"

"Too much ale?" the receptionist asked, laughing. "We've all been there."

"Something like that," The Major muttered, jotting down fake details of the 'Kendrews' and taking the keys. "Do I leave a deposit?"

"Just £10 and you can pay in full in the morning," she said, smirking at the pair.

"Yup. Gonny hu-rull," Butler said somewhat happily.

"You take cash?" The Major asked hurriedly, stuffing a plastic bag into Butler's hand. Butler looked at it confusedly, before deciding it would suit him better as a hat.

"Yes, but there's an extra cleaning charge if he does I'm afraid," she said apologetically, taking the money and nodding at the younger man who did honestly look on the verge of throwing up.

"Understandable." The Major nodded knowingly, pulling the bag off his nephew's head exasperatedly.

"There's a phone in there if you need to ring an ambulance at any point," she said helpfully.

"_Nuurgh."_

Butler went to wrap his arms around his uncle who shrugged him off.

"He doesn't need a hospital, he needs a good hiding and one hell of a hangover to teach him a lesson," The Major growled, grabbing hold of his nephew round the middle and lifting him up, with a little discreet help.

"The room is on second floor I'm afraid, but you can use the elevator."

"Thank-you."

"No problem," she said, waving at the younger man. "See you in the morning, honey."

Butler waved mock-drunkenly and, as the elevator door closed, he turned to his uncle and said audibly: "'Ey up, N'cul. Ah think ave pulled."

She laughed, having no idea the whole episode was a lie. The lift door closed and The Major checked the box for cameras and speakers before he spoke irritatedly, punching in the floor number.

"Get off me."

"Cailean? Really?" Butler asked as he stopped leaning on his uncle and stretched.

"I thought it suited the character you were playing," The Major said, shrugging.

"Huh," Butler snorted. More likely his Uncle thought the name suited him _in general_. "Well I think I play a pretty convincing drunk, to be honest."

"Anyone would think you'd had practice," The Major muttered as the lift ground to a halt at the right floor.

"Yeah right," Butler snorted. Like he'd ever had the liberty to endanger his liver. "She believed me anyway."

"Indeed, but the only thing you've pulled is her leg."

"Yeah and my stitches actually," Butler flexed his bicep. "I need to work on my fake face-planting."

"In the words of Juliet: get over it, you big wuss. And start acting pissed again there's a camera in that far corner."

* * *

><p>The card games had lasted a good hour before they both mutually agreed that sleep was probably a good idea. The coughing man hadn't stirred for a good few minutes and as they said their goodnights, both were hoping he'd stay that way. Gary fell quickly asleep, allowed to now by the nurses that had kept coming in to check that he hadn't been for the past four hours in case of brain swelling after his concussion.<p>

Artemis Senior also slept. But fitfully, awaking often in a cold sweat brought on by dreams of fiery doom. The nurses kept an eye on him on their rounds as he thrashed and mumbled in his sleep, often repeating the name 'Angeline' but otherwise giving away nothing more of his identity than he already had done.

"Do you think he's important somehow?" one nurse asked another.

The woman spared the pale, dark-haired man a look. "Probably not, what makes you ask?"

"Just look at his clothes and stuff. And he had no wallet on him or anything."

Little did she know that that was because The Major had taken it, along with anything else that could give away his charge's identity.

"Oh I'm not sure. Has he given a name yet?" the other nurse said. Apart from the expensive clothes he had come into the hospital in, nothing had made the man any different to their usual casualties. And because of the standard of the restaurant a good percentage of their patients tonight had come in from, even that made him fairly ordinary tonight.

"No. He plays dumb when we talk to him. Says his first name is Tim and after that he won't say anymore," she said shrugging. Of course he hadn't said more. The Major had taught him never to give his name if he found himself alone somewhere. " So I warned him that he'd be staying in for longer if he said he couldn't remember things and he warned me that he had never mentioned memory loss and that I was being intrusive to patient privacy."

"Cheeky, ungrateful little…"

"I know!"

"Well if he doesn't spend all night coughing him and that other bloke from the _Skylight _explosion should be ok for release sometime tomorrow. Probably in the evening. We'll keep him under obvs tomorrow, see how he goes, but his lungs are nothing on Mr. Johnson's on that ward."

"Yeah, we'll have to see if we can get anything out of him before he goes, even if it's just the release signature."

"Some people are really weird about keeping their identities hidden."

"You don't suppose he's some sort of gang leader or criminal mastermind?" one asked, half-seriously.

"Don't be daft," the other laughed.

* * *

><p>After negotiating the hallway and finding their room, the Butlers sat on the ends of the twin beds and the younger pulled open the video camera's screen, fiddling with it until it showed a freeze of Artemis and Angeline with a <strong>'PLAY'<strong> symbol.

"It's a ransom message," he said, all traces of jovial drunk-acting gone.

His uncle leaned in to watch.

**"_Whoever is watching this, I'd like to tell you that..." Angeline choked back a sob. "That we're ok at the moment..."_**

**_Some rustling and a hissed whisper. "Stick to the script, lady."_**

**"_But unless you or someone hands over the bodies of... of Artemis Fowl..." she blinked back tears. "And the two Butlers who work for him... us... along with £100 million... they are going to k...k...kill me and my son."_**

**_The camera panned from the blank concrete behind her to the opposite side of the room where a man held Artemis Junior off the floor by his lapels. _**

Butler felt himself shaking slightly. He noted the features of the man doing the holding. He was as good as _dead_ once his face was recorded on Butler's 'Shoot List'.

The image zoomed in on Artemis's frightened face. In the background Angeline was shouting something almost hysterically. It sounded like more like a list of unrelated words than anything else.

**"_Scream, kid," someone sniggered and the man dropped Artemis to the floor and grabbed the boy by his ear._**

Artemis screamed and the image cut.

The Major took the camera from his nephew and patted him on the back solidly. "We'll get them back."

"I know," Butler got to his feet and started pacing across the narrow space between the ends of the beds and the desk the room boasted.

"They've made a mistake giving us this."

"Yep." One, two, three, turn, one, two, three, turn.

"If we rewind it, and pause it, before... the end," The Major realised his nephew wasn't really listening. "Stop pacing."

"Yep." Butler sat back down heavily on the chair's only room, taking out his gun and running his hand over it before checking it was fully loaded.

"The cargo might give us some idea as to where they're being kept," he muted and rewound the video until he had a proper shot of the crates and bags of foodstuffs.

"Yep." Butler clicked the gun back together and patted it once against his palm.

"If we can get a good idea we can start checking for..." he paused.

"Yep." Butler answered on auto-pilot, knee was jigging up and down and he drummed his fingers on the muzzle of his Sig Sauer distractedly, likely envisaging _exactly_ what he'd do once he found the men involved.

The Major leaned over and placed a firm palm on his arm and Butler froze, making eye contact properly.

"Calm down, Dom," he said quietly, about the only person in the world right now that would get away with trying to dissipate his nephew's mood. After all, he knew exactly how the younger bodyguard was feeling. His own charge was in God-knew-which hospital been treated for however many injuries The Major had somehow allowed to happen.

Butler cleared his throat and shook the red mist out of his eyes. "Right. Sorry. You were saying?"

"That's better," his uncle nodded. "Now, see here, there's stuff that looks like bags of rice. Now this is a complete and utter stab in the dark, but that much rice usually means some sort of oriental restaurant."

"Or a take-away at the very least," Butler nodded. "And likely abandoned unless the owner's are in on it."

"I think from the lighting and lack of decor we can take an idea that it's a basement of some sort."

"Missus Fowl was shouting something whilst they…" Butler swallowed and controlled the building rage. "Had hold of Artemis."

"You want me to replay it?"

"Yes. See if she says anything useful."

The Major rewound it, not showing his nephew the screen but upping the volume. It was difficult to hear over the scuffling and screaming but she shouted a few key words.

"_Cellar… eight… big... tattoos... guns..."_

"Right. That's a little helpful, I suppose," The Major said, cutting the video off at the scream.

"Big, tattooed and guns would suggest Drake's there, or at least was."

"I recognise one of the blokes from when we started with Carker. Seems he's using his old boys after we got in."

"And they have them in an abandoned take-away somewhere near here. Any ideas?"

"Well, you know the area as well as I do. There's one about a mile and a half from here, just round the corner from that 'Yule' restaurant. You got the kids a meal there after... well after that argument."

Butler remembered 'that argument' well. They had been having a meal for Angeline's birthday, Juliet had been invited too after using her pocket-money to buy Mrs. Fowl a new vase. The fact that she had smashed the one it was replacing remained hidden. The evening had not gone well. It had ended in a furious argument where Angeline had ordered Butler to take the children home. Butler had looked to The Major for confirmation, since he was supposed to answer to Artemis Senior, or at least until Artemis Junior was old enough to make his own decisions sensibly. The moment had long past, but until Mr. Fowl deemed it official, he was the final authority since Butler obeyed The Major, and the Fowl patriarch gave him his orders. Unfortunately, this had made the argument even worse, as Angeline's whole point had been that she felt she had no authority in the family and was fed-up of sitting at home whilst he made vast amounts of dubious money.

The end result had been Butler taking Artemis and Juliet and the Bentley towards the manor, stopping off at a take-away for food, since the argument had happened just after the starters had arrived and they were all hungry. Juliet had done a good job of cheering Artemis up by the time he had run in for the food and come back. Butler didn't ask what had been said, simply accepted that his sister was good at that sort of thing and tried not to wince as some grease splattered onto the leather seats courtesy of the inexperienced take-away food eater.

The Fowl couple had returned the next day, The Major texting Butler not to worry and that they were booked into a hotel somewhere. Something had changed after that day and Artemis Senior had started promising that he would make more of an effort to keep his ventures on the legal side. OK, so 95% of his business deals still _weren't_, but at least he had _started_ to make the promised effort.

"So we know where it is," Butler continued, getting up again. "We should go there now and see if we're right. Check how many they've got guarding it and get in there before they move them."

"Sit," The Major said firmly. "There's not much point going now. We'll hit them this morning before dawn. They still won't be expecting us so soon and I doubt Carker will risk moving them until he has reason to."

"And if we're wrong?"

"Then we're back to square one and there's no point in starting in the middle of the night. We'll rest for now."

Butler knew it was stupid to get worked up and sit there buzzing. He'd be no good later, mentally or physically, if he was knackered.

"Sleep," the elder said seriously.

Butler flopped back on the bed but didn't remove his shoes.

"Don't make me tranq you."

Butler had no doubt his uncle had tranquilisers on him, but whether or not he would actually attempt to use them, he wasn't certain either way.

"We leave at four."

"Window?"

"Obviously," the older Butler said as though the question was stupid.

Butler looked at his watch. Half-past midnight. Less than four hours sleep.

His uncle lay down too, leading by example as he shifted onto his side and set his phone alarm before he calmed his breathing.

Butler set his own alarms, phone and watch, before finally allowing his eyes to close.

It was pretty pointless really. Neither of them would sleep.

* * *

><p>"You're sure?"<p>

"I'd send a team down their, sir," Drake sighed. "But the local plod are down there now and it would be a good idea to stay out of their way."

"You've wiped the CCTV tapes though?"

"Of course."

"How can they be alive?" Carker spat, slamming his hand on the desk.

_Because you had to be the one to 'press the button' and completely wreck our best chance of killing them,_ Drake thought, using the _'voice mentally your preferred response' _method. Out loud, he said nothing.

His boss took out his mobile.

"Who's shift is it?"

"Still Mike and Travis so far as I know, sir," Drake said, wondering where his boss was going with this.

Carker speedialled.

* * *

><p>"I am bored out of my fu..."<p>

Travis's mobile rang, cutting him off. Mickey and the other two relaxed slightly. The man had become restless in the last half an hour, complaining constantly about needing a cigarette and his shift buddy telling him he'd have to wait because he didn't want to be breathing in scummy air for the rest of the evening.

"Yeah?" he grunted. "...oh hey boss..."

Mickey watched interestedly. Fifteen minuets left until he could get out of this cellar and stop looking at their captives guilty that he was feeling any guilt about kidnapping them at all. Still, assassinating, bodyguarding and kidnapping businessmen was entirely different to holding women and children hostage for no personal reason. He was only doing it because the pay was good. And because someone had to try to keep Travis in check before the man's actions got them all caught.

"OK, sir. No problem," Travis said, clenching his hands and rolling his eyes.

"Not good news?"

Travis beeped the call off, mouthing swearwords at the device.

"What does he think we are? Bloody slaves?"

"What?"

"He wants us to stay on till dawn. Something about resting the others. We're to cuff them up and sleep in shifts."

"What's changed?" Mickey asked, sighing. _So much for getting out of here._

"They ain't dead," Travis said, in a voice he deemed cryptic.

"Great. Who screwed that one up?"

"Dunno. Betting it wasn't Drake Mr-I'm so-friggen-perfect-my-arsehole-could-shoot-better-than-you."

Mickey raised an eyebrow. That had been an almost exact quote of Drake's. Apparently it had bothered Travis more than he let on. Still, the other man smirked, opening a dufflebag and taking out a pair of handcuffs and swinging them in a circle on one finger.

"Stop it you perv," Mickey rolled his eyes.

His partner laughed, cuffing both the Fowls and throwing the keys to him.

"Fine. But I get to sleep first."

"Be my guest," Mickey grunted, leaning back on the crate and tucking the keys into his pocket.

The Fowls looked at each other hopefully. Whoever _wasn't dead_ was apparently worrying to the people that had them. And that could only mean one thing.

The Butlers were coming for them.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, you can blame my dog for this not being up earlier tonight. I won't go into details apart from the fact that it involved next door's dog, a fence panel needing repairing and me wondering if tooth fairies come for dogs. Stoopid animal.<strong>

**Ah the name Cailean. Pronounced 'KAH-LAN'. Scottish, meaning (in most name meaning thingies) 'whelp, cub, pup' haha :)**

**And 'Kendrew' (said how it looks) is another Scottish name meaning 'warrior'.**

**Bit of name-y trivia for you there, showing thought has gone into these names. I didn't just pluck them out of the air :)**

**Anyhoo, again sorry for the delay. Hope you enjoyed it!**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O**


	10. Stories, Saviours and Stockholm Syndrome

**WARNING:- *In the voice of Dermot O'Leary * Your action-fix-fight starts right **_**here!**_

**(If you don't know who Derm is, search him, he's the presenter of the UK version of X-Factor and his catchphrase is 'Your Saturday night starts right **_**here!**_**" so it would be better if this was posted tomorrow night... but ah well, who wants to wait?)**

**Thanks to:**

*** KKCopper ***

*** 2whitie ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** tech17 ***

**for the reviews :) Here is your reward of a nice big, badass-Butler filled chapter with a title to make a lisper spit :)**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TEN - Stories, Saviours and Stockholm Syndrome <strong>

**_Flashback_  
><strong>

_Butler could only stare as the cab drove away, much more readily than it had stopped, red tail-lights winking into the distance. Well, **'could only'** wasn't exactly true and he considered for a second how easy it would be to sprint after it and leap onto the back. But his uncle would merely force him to get off and he would be no closer to home than he was now._

_Actually, he would be further away if he thought about it._

_He knew exactly where they would be going. They wouldn't want the taxi-driver clicking who they were. They'd be dropped off at one of the safe-houses. Pick up a car there and then head back to the manor. The decoy address was at least 25 miles away from the manor, and right now he was around 9 away from the latter. If he ran over the fields, that was. So all he had to do was beat the taxi driver's journey time, then however long it took to get the car ready, then The Major's drive time back to Fowl Manor. There was a very fair chance that The Major would not stick to a speed below fifty on the empty country lanes, but Butler could always hope for a late night tractor trundling along and blocking their way._

_Shaking canal water out of his ears, he leapt a hedge and set off at a jog across the boggy fields._

_Carker, was in the back of a police car. He'd glimpsed them taking Drake away in a van, fully conscious now, or at least awake enough to need cuffing and guarding by two burly-looking police officers. Both security teams had also been arrested and Carker was hoping that Fowl's team would start squealing. If they mentioned their employer, then the other man would be investigated too. But all of the men knew The Major and his nephew. And they weren't about to mess with that pair._

_As it was, Carker had been a wanted man in connection with a crime involving the mysterious disappearance of several thousand pounds from a fund to raise money for a new set of mayoral chains after someone else had stolen the first pair. The town's mayor had annoyed Carker, the theft was simply an amusement to him, yet it was this out of all his past crimes, that he had been pulled for this time. Ridiculous._

_At least his lawyers would find getting him out easy. And hopefully Drake too. Having lost his gun somewhere upstairs, the police had only taken him in for the other offensive weaponry the any good bodyguard carried on a daily basis. The man had licenses for them all and the lack of Butlers to charge him for assault meant that soon enough the Police would have to release him under the grounds that they didn't really have anything to hold him for. Except perhaps involvement in the mayoral chains incident..._

_Carker bounced his cuffs off his knee. He'd have a lot of waiting around to do. But that was ok. It just gave him more time to plot his revenge..._

_Forty odd minuets later, Butler's palms hit the rough stone of the manor wall. He hadn't heard an engine or wheels in a good while and was faintly hopeful as he opened the side gate with the appropriate code, locked it again and jogged across the gravel to the delivery door. _

_Mud was coating his trouser legs, adding at least an extra kilogram to the weight he was already carrying but he hardly noticed. On days when she wasn't in the best of moods, Madam Ko used to make them jog in wet jeans and lead boots back at the Academy._

_He keyed in the code at the next keypad and practically fell through the door, hoping to get in before one of the chef's woke up and went mad at him for the mess that was dripping off him. Not that that would bother him, but it would certainly bother Missus Fowl if her favourite cook quit due to being 'threatened in the workplace'_

_He breathed in warm air for the first time in well over an hour, the sharp contrast making him cough._

"_I should make you hose yourself down outside before you come traipsing in here, boy," said an annoying familiar voice. "Ko would."_

_Butler looked up, already knowing what he would see. His uncle was sat at the staff-kitchen's table with a newspaper and mug of hot tea. He'd even had time to wash and change - which wasn't that surprising since any Butler worth their salt could wash, change and be back ready for action in less than four minutes, but still..._

"_You didn't stick to the speed limit," Butler stated, opening a cupboard he knew held old towels most often used to clean the kitchen floor. Normal people would use them for cars, but The Major refused to allow such rags to touch the paintwork of his precious fleet of automobiles. Particularly his favourite, for which The Major had bought an entire set of luxury bath-towels to clean._

"_And you ran a..." The Major checked his watch. "5 minuet mile. Or there abouts. That's not so nippy for you now, is it?"_

"_Cows," Butler said bluntly, grabbing a towel from the cupboard and drying the mixture of sweat, dubious 'mud' splatter and what was left of the canal water off his face before leaning on the wall and starting to untie his boots through the layer of mud. They were going to need a complete scrub down and polish and as for the shrike throwing knives, well they would have to be polished to perfection if he didn't want them to start suffering rust damage._

"_Cows?"_

"_Yup. Lots of pretty damn furious cows," Butler grunted, pulling off one boot and ignoring the amount of crap that ended up on the floor. The kitchen wasn't his domain. And quite frankly, 'unlucky' to whoever had to clean it up. The kitchen staff didn't care when they stupidly left the delivery door un-alarmed, like they probably had done tonight - unless The Major had turned the security measure off to let him in, so why should he care about their stupid floor hygiene? Did it matter that much? If they were dropping food on the floor or putting their feet in the dishes then maybe but..._

"_So that added what? A minute? You're not fooling me boy, I reckon you need a bit more running in your training routine."_

"_I had to detour round them. Bad terrain," Butler knew the excuse would fall on deaf ears but it was true. There had been a herd of heifers that had taken a severe aversion to his sprinting through their territory in the middle of the night and he had been forced to take a detour. It had been a large herd. Any less of them, or perhaps if it had been daylight enough for them to __**see **__that he was not in the mood to be trampled over, he might have taken them on._

_As it was, his sense of direction had led him through a field that might have been beautiful on another night. An old oak leant over a twisted river and if he had looked close enough he might have seen a heat-haze-like shimmer near its base... _

_But Butler didn't much care about the tree or the river after he had leapt over it. The detour had meant he had to run over another couple of fields, a bog and a stile, adding at least another half-a-mile to his jog and forcing him to slow down and assess his best route through the wide expanse of wet mud or risk sinking knee-deep into it and having to crawl out._

"_Go get washed up," The Major said, still looking __**most **__amused at the way his little prank had worked out._

"_I'm going, I'm going," Butler muttered, trudging out of the room with his boots hanging by the laces from one hand._

_Soon he was warmer, drier and smelling considerably better as he headed into the room the Butlers used for cleaning things. This included clothing, boots, weaponry etc and, usually, the various minor injuries they had received whilst dirtying the clothes, boots, weaponry etc._

_He had put his boots on a rack to dry, planning to brush the worst of the mud off later, and was sorting out the split knuckles he had only noticed when he had scrubbed enough mud off his hands to make the soap sting the cuts. The vast first aid kit was laid out over the wooden table and he was rubbing the raw flesh with a mixture of disinfectant and alcohol to, hopefully, lessen the chance of him catching tetanus from the bacteria in the mud that had probably entered his bloodstream by now anyway, when there was a small knock at the door._

"_Yes?"_

"_It's me," Juliet said, poking her head round the door and creeping in. "What're you doing? Uncle said you fell in a canal."_

"_Yup. It's late - why are you up?"_

"_I came to check if you hurt yourself."_

"_I don't hurt __**myself**__, Jules, things just like to try to hurt me."_

"_And people do too, eh bro?" Juliet laughed, hoiking herself up onto the edge of the table. "Uncle mentioned a bloke you beat up."_

"_Did he now?" Butler muttered, poking at what appeared to be a loose bit of bone._

_**Fantastic. Bits of my knuckles falling off. Just what I needed... not.**_

_The cut didn't even look deep enough to be showing more than a glimmer of white and he wondered, as he poked at the chip, what the hell he'd done that on._

"_Whatcha doing?" Juliet repeated._

"_I'm cleaning the shit out of my knuckles."_

"_Well __**duh.**__ Whatcha split 'em on?"_

"_You know that bloke you said uncle mentioned?"_

"_Yeah. Well no, not personally, but go on."_

"_His face," Butler shrugged, poking at something with a set of tweezers from the kit._

"_Eww, Dom, __**gross**__! That's bone!"_

"_Yeah... I think you're right there..."_

"_Well I think it's meant to stay __**in**__ there," Juliet winced as he picked at it._

"_It doesn't hurt," Butler assured her._

"_Correction. It knackers. You just don't have any pain receptors. Now put it** back** you idiot, it's part of your hand - you might need it someday!"_

"_Not this bit."_

"_What? Why?"_

"_Because I think it's a bit of tooth, actually..."_

_He finally picked out the shard and held it up to the light. It was definitely bone, but judging by the lack of serious discomfort when he flexed his fist, it wasn't a misplaced part of his skeleton._

"_**Cooool**__," Juliet gasped, awestruck. "You punched some dude in the face hard enough to stick his tooth in your hand? __**That. Is. Awesome,**__ bro!"_

"_Yeah," Butler said nonchalantly, mouth twitching at the corners._

"_Can I keep it?"_

"_What?" the smirk turned into a slight frown. "Why would you...?"_

"_Like a souvenir?"_

"_Of what? No you can't you strange child!" Butler laughed at her as she whined in disappointment._

_The door opened again and The Major walked in, placing a can of Coca-Cola on the desk. _

"_Drink up. There's some serious amounts of crap in canal water."_

_**You think?**__ Butler thought as he opened it and took a few gulps, knowing that the liquid would kill pretty much any bacteria he had swallowed in his little dip._

"_What have you there?" their uncle asked interestedly, as Juliet poked at the tooth fragment with the tweezers._

"_Bit of tooth," she explained. "And Dom won't let me keep it."_

"_What on earth would you want to keep it for, girl?" The Major asked, raising his eyebrows._

"_As a souvenir-y thing," Juliet sighed at the stupidity of her male relatives. __**Obviously**__. Why couldn't they understand that a bit of actual-person-your-big-brother-beat-up was something worthy of being stuck in her scrap book?_

"_Of what?" The Major asked, then turning to his nephew. "Is it yours?_

"_Nope," Butler said, showing off his own full set in a grin. "Drake's."_

"_Nice hit," The Major nodded approvingly, walking over to the door. "Oh and Dom? We'll go halves on the suits. Technically the explosion was my fault."_

"_Thanks," Butler smiled again, not caring how his uncle got to that conclusion, when normally he could find a way to excuse himself from any amount of blame._

"_It's only fair," The Major shrugged as he left the room._

"_There was an explosion?" Juliet jabbered excitedly. "You __**have **__to tell me about it!_

_Her brother sighed, glancing at his watch._

"_**Jules**__... its half past one in the morning..."_

"_Aww, pweeeease?" she begged. "You __**used **__to tell me bedtime stories about you and uncle's adventures..."_

"_Fine," Butler sighed. "But only if you promise not to try to re-enact it this time..."_

_Juliet grinned, grabbing a clean towel from the side and wrapping it around herself like a blanket as she sat on one of the wooden chairs. Butler realised she wanted this story to take some time, but he was tired. He tried to cut it shorter._

"_There was this office and then..."_

"_Tell me from the beginning!"_

_Butler sighed again. He wasn't going to get away with a five minute recollection then. But looking at the excitement shining in his little sister's eyes, he wasn't sure he wanted to cut the story short after all. He pushed the first aid kit away from the edge of the table and leant back on his chair._

"_Well, it all started when Mr. Fowl had an idea about me and uncle infiltrating this guy Carker's business as new bodyguards for him..."_

* * *

><p><strong>Present<strong>

True to their word, the Butler's were up early.

Dawn hadn't even broken when they left, leaving the keys and a few notes of money on the beside-table as payment for the four and a half hours they had spent in the room. They opened the window as far as it would go in order to squeeze themselves out. The placement of the room, completely by fluke, backed onto the rear of the building where a boundary wall lay just a few metres below the window, saving them the trouble of jumping the two stories.

Butler went first, hanging by his fingertips from the windowsill and hoping the technique would prove more successful than it had during the canal-bridge incident. He lowered himself lightly onto the top of the garden wall and leapt onto the pavement on the other side. The Major followed with just as much uncharacteristic grace.

Once the pair had dropped down onto the street, they paused to get their bearings, then set of at a jog towards their next destination. Of course, they couldn't be certain they were going to the right place, but, as The Major had said, it wasn't as if they had anywhere else to start looking.

They kept at a steady pace, clocking the names and layout of roads to check they were still heading in the right direction. Both wanted to go faster, and would if they were certain of the end point. Or if the finishing line wasn't so likely to involve a rough -up they'd need their energy for.

It took a few pauses to ascertain the best route but eventually the sign for 'The Golden Yule' loomed into view.

"You take it from here," The Major said quietly, and Butler flicked back through his memory to what route he had taken to the take-away. The normally unfazed Artemis had been welling-up on the back seat, Juliet next to him had been taking worried glances at her brother's charge and at one point squeezed his hand. And then, instead of heading straight to the manor, he had turned left.

They slowed as they spotted the closed takeaway with the damaged, unlit sign, faintly stating the name 'The Dragon Bowl'.

The Butlers paused on the opposite side of the street, catching their breath and trying to appear as though they were simply two heedless citizens out for an early morning stroll. Be that a _very _early morning stroll. A cheery bell alerted them to the danger and they stepped back into the shadows of an alley almost opposite the building.

The sun broke over the horizon suddenly, glancing off puddles in the road and turning them into golden mirrors. The door to the closed take-away opened fully, and a man stepped out, raising a hand to shield his eyes. He fumbled with something, and soon a faint trail of smoke wound its way into the sky.

"Right. At least one guard, but we can be pretty certain there's more inside," The Major muttered, taking out his gun and checking it was ready for action.

Butler nodded. "Plan?"

"Well, we could take that idiot out and see who comes to help for starters. I know I'd rather they came out to us than we went into their lair."

Butler's head twitched in agreement but he was squinted at the man's features, illuminated by the sunlight. Immediately he recognised the cruel features of the man who had hit his charge. He pulled a cap out of his pocket and nodded again more fiercely. "May I?"

The Major looked at the man at the door and felt no pity for what he was about to allow to happen.

"Be my guest, nephew," The Major cocked and eyebrow at the obvious restrained anger. "I'll cover you. And if you can help it, no bodies please."

He didn't need to warn his nephew to control his emotions, the man knew well enough and as he stepped out of the shadows The Major saw him settle into the faux-relaxed mode they were trained to sink into before a fight. He drew his gun, levelling it at the doorway. Nothing was coming through _that _without him taking care of it.

Butler focussed on the job, bending the baseball-cap over his brow to shadow his face and, casually leaving one hand behind his back, strolled across the road.

"Hey mate. Got a light?" he called once the man started eyeing him suspiciously.

The man said nothing, but pulled a lighter from his pocket once Butler got within a few paces. He needed to get rid of this idiot as soon as possible. The first two of the team had arrived, which mean it wasn't long now and the boss would be back. He held it out to the stranger.

"Here," he said, hoping the huge bloke would trundle on his way if he simply gave him what he asked for. He didn't have time for trouble. He tried to get a look at his face, a sinking sensation hitting him as he realised he should have probably been more cautious with anyone anything over 6ft considering who they were dealing with.

_Too late._

"Thanks," Butler said coldly, his dark eyes glinting in the rays that pierced the shadows cast by the cap. "But you know smoking's bad for your health, right?"

It certainly was. Or rather, going outside for a fag rather than staying inside nice and safe and away from Butlers was.

Butler grabbed the man's hand in his own, squeezing so hard that the lighter's casing cracked, spilling flammable fluid over the man's crushed hand. He tried to yell but the Butler dragged the guy by his arm towards him in a swift movement and brought his shoulder into his enemies face, using his other hand to squeeze the pressure point on the man's neck. Letting go of his crushed fingers and bringing back his fist, Butler felt no small satisfaction at the crunch the contact between his knuckles and the man's nose made during the unnecessary punch. The man was out cold with barely a shout.

Still, there was movement behind the door and Butler stepped to one side of it, shielded by the newspaper covering the window. The door swung inwards and he swung an elbow with it, a second after the bell rang. The joint hit cartilage and the man on the receiving end fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

_Two noses in ten seconds, not bad._

Butler held the door open with a foot to stop the bell chiming for a third time and stayed where he was until his uncle gave him the thumbs up and strode over to them quickly. He stepped over the man on the floor cautiously.

"Nice work."

The younger nodded and they entered the door carefully. The room was empty, but the section of countertop that allowed staff to pass between the diner-area and the kitchens was up. It smelt of greasy fast food, nevertheless, both Butlers' unfed stomachs growled at appreciatively. But it hadn't even been 24 hours since their last meal and Academy training alone involved four days without food. Both of these blue-diamonds had gone hungry for well over a week before now.

"We need to drag those two in here," The Major jerked his head at the unconscious guards. "Or else whoever turns up will know something isn't right."

There were two doors behind the counter and together they pulled the two men inside by their jackets through the one leading to the kitchen, leaving them on the floor, out of the way. Butler stepped back into the front of the shop and flicked the flimsy-looking lock across. It would at least buy them a few seconds.

The Major was looking at a pulled-to door marked** 'STORES'** and about to tell his nephew that they should check if this was the door to the basement, since they were almost certainly in the right place now, when the sound of a car pulling up outside stopped him.

Voices echoed through the newspaper screen.

"Where's Nick? He's supposed to be outside."

"He'll have forgot, sir."

"Don't give me that. It could be _them_," the man in charge snapped. "Any anomaly, Joshua. _Any _anomaly."

"Yes sir, apologies sir."

"Don't give me that!" the man repeated and the Butlers were certain it was Carker, for this was one of his favourite phrases. "Go check everything's alright."

There was the sound of footsteps drawing closer until they paused. "Sir, there's blood here. On the pavement. Not much but it could be something..."

Carker swore.

"Go get the Fowls. I hold these off," The Major growled, ducking behind the counter and levelling his gun. Butler pulled out his own gun.

"Need an extra gun?"

"Shouldn't do. Go. Quickly."

The door to the basement swung open easily and Butler crept down the concrete stairs. Light from the doorway flooded into the room below.

"How many fags did you have, Nick?"

_Shit._

"Jonny?"

Knowing that to speak now would just give him away, Butler slid along the wall down the stairs.

"Who's there?" one man barked, starting to get suspicious. "Stop pissing about!"

Movement. Someone was heading towards the stairs.

"Go check Mickey."

"I don't trust leaving you," the man called 'Mickey' shouted over his shoulder.

"What, it's not like I can do anything in 30 seconds."

Butler felt his lip curl at the sickening voice. He bent his knees.

"Huh, somehow I don't believe you..." the speaking figure appeared at the bottom of the stairs, barely having time to swear before he was flattened by just under 19 stone of angry Butler.

According to Juliet's BMI calculator, Butler was verging on overweight. The Major, apparently, already was in the red weight zone. That involved a lot of laughing and teasing, followed by a lengthy explanation to the youngest Butler that BMI does not take into account muscle mass and Juliet should throw the ridiculous thing away. Overweight or not, 260 odd pounds of 7ft 2 inch Butler is a lot to be hit by from a considerable height. The man crumpled, one leg broken instantly and head snapping backwards onto the floor, knocking him unconscious immediately. Butler landed on him and rolled to his feet.

Madam Ko would have perhaps commented on the half-a-second-or-so it took him to get up.

_Far too long. You could have been dead by then. And if you are dead, your principal is as good as._

Ah well, practice made perfect and he hadn't thrown himself down many stairs recently that he could remember.

The man still standing leapt away from him and drew a handgun. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot."

Butler dived behind a box of some ex-supply from the take-away. Definitely not bullet-proof, but it meant he was hidden. The man rightly panicked.

"Come out or I... I shoot the kid."

_Not good. Very not good._ Butler considered his options. _He'd _rather get shot at than Artemis.

"Alright. I'll come out. Just don't shoot anyone."

He came out slowly, hands up. The gun switched to him.

The Fowl's eyes widened at the sight of him, but they couldn't speak through the tape secured over both their mouths.

Butler tried negotiating first. No need for the pair to receive a swift reminder of just exactly what kind of skills were under their employment _just _yet. "Look, I'm only here for them. No one has to get hurt."

"Too late for that. No offense, but I shoot you and my Christmas bonus is going through the roof, mate."

"Fair enough."

Butler smashed a fist on the lightswitch on the wall behind him and plunged them into darkness. He was good with darkness. He dropped to the floor, bellycrawling forward and rolling away from where he'd been before he stood up and threw a first at the source of the waft of air that warned him of movement. His hand hit the muzzle of the gun, sending the shot wide and the gun skittering across the floor. His next hit made a much nicer flesh-on-flesh noise. The man yelled and grabbed his face, falling over backwards and dropping like a dead weight. Thankfully he missed landing on the Fowls but he hit his head on the wall, groaning and Butler grabbed the guy by his ankles and dragged him back towards the light filtering down from the stairs, switching the bulb back on. The man was groaning, which he quickly put a temporary end too and threw him towards his still-unconscious partner.

Then he took a breath, cramming the emotionless, trained-to-kill side of him back into its caged corner of his brain before he knelt next to the two shivering figures on the floor.

"Butler!" Artemis yelped the second his mouth was freed of tape. Butler peeled the tape away from their mouths much more gently than the man had done for Artemis before.

"Hello Artemis," Butler felt his rage boil back to the surface as he saw his charge's swollen cheek. He grabbed the boys wrists in one hand and considered the cuffs and tape that held them together. "Do you know who has the keys to these?"

"Him over there, the first one you...ah got," Angeline said, bringing her own cuffed hands up to point.

"Right," Butler said, striding over and grabbing the man by the jacket. He was stirring and Butler considered that he would give the man a chance to be helpful rather tan waste time rootling through all his pockets.

"Oi, sleeping beauty," he said, patting the man's cheek heavily. "Where are the keys to the cuffs?"

"Wha...argh... my head... ah my leg... jeeze..."

He didn't have time for this. The bodyguard dropped the man to the floor and began patting his jacket down.

"Butler he isn't the worst of them," Angeline called. "He'll probably give you them if you ask again."

Butler looked over incredulously. That was Stockholm Syndrome talking, he would guess, but still, he tried again, pulling the man's head closer and speaking more slowly.

"Keys. Cuffs. Now."

The man blinked at him blearily and reached a hand into his inside pocket and handing the giant a set of cuff keys.

Butler dropped the man a little less heavily and knelt before the Fowls again, quickly unlocking the cuffs. Then he reached to his boot and pulled out one of his shrike throwing knives. It was testament to their bond that Artemis didn't even flinch when he ran the blade millimetres from the boy's wrists, then ankles, freeing him before turning to do the same for Angeline.

"Are you OK?" he asked the boy.

"I will be fine, thank-you Butler. Just a few scratches here and there."

Butler helped him to his feet guiltily. Not even 'scratches' were acceptable in his book. He turned to help Angeline and started to wonder whether the place had a back door they could get out of if things took a turn for the worse upstairs.

"Thank you," she said, peeling the rest of the tape off carefully.

"Don't mention it," Butler grunted. And he meant it. Mentioning this moment would remind him about the failure that had led to it. Not something any bodyguard wanted to be reminded of.

"I don't suppose you could bring Mickey, ah, that man, with us when we leave? He's the reason we're not more injured than we could have been..." Angeline started.

Butler was about to try to explain that he had no intention of bringing the man with them when there was a smash that came from the front door being forced open and shouting from upstairs.

Butler suddenly realised that it was odd that his Uncle hadn't shouted down to check if he'd found the Fowls yet. He'd been sitting silently waiting for the door to be forced and now he was up against however many men had burst through it.

With two of them, they'd likely be able to take out anyone that did, but to do that, he needed to make sure the Fowl's were safe.

Butler hauled sacks of rice from one corner.

"Get behind here. Keep quiet. Don't come out for anything," he told them, gesturing them into the small makeshift shelter.

A hail of bullets shattered the dawn quiet. Miniature explosions that Butler's eardrums were well used to, but had the Fowls covering their ears.

The pair screamed and voices yelled from upstairs. More gunshots. Rice sacks weren't going to be enough. He scanned the room frantically. The freezer door stood out against the bleak walls. A guttural snarl of pain he would recognise anywhere reached his ears. The gunshots continued and Butler knew it would be his uncle still fighting. Unlike in the action films, bullets didn't tend to down you unless they hit you in the head, or somewhere else fairly essential to you staying upright - providing you had the determination to keep going.

Still, for perhaps half a second, his legs considered sprinting up the stairs, his hand drawing his gun instinctively before he realised it was in his palm. He slipped it loosely back into its holster.

_Protect the Principals._

"Come with me," he ignored his uncle, helping them up again. Grabbing Artemis by the shoulder and Angeline by the hand, he turned the freezer temperature gauge up to as hot as it would go and heaved the door open.

"We can't go in there! We'll freeze!" Artemis gasped, turning in the hold his bodyguard on him.

"It won't be for long I promise," his bodyguard said, shepherding them inside.

"It's going to be alright, Arty," Angeline said firmly, spotting the emergency exit handle on the inner of the door. _Just in case..._

"Just stay down and I'll be back as soon as I can," Butler said quietly, sealing the door and turning on the spot. He would. If they caught hypothermia after all this...

* * *

><p>The Major fired through the pain, he had already hit several in places that were going to leave them incapacitated in one way or another. Then two men had piled through the doorway at the same time and although he hit one, the other fired with trained accuracy and The Major had snarled in pain and annoyance at the hit. Then the guy had ducked out of the way and The Major had had to concentrate on others rather than returning the shot.<p>

Finally, the doorway was empty and he was fairly sure he had got them all. Which was lucky, since he had about three bullets left. He placed the weapon down and allowed himself to look at his injury. A good portion of his lower body was soaked in blood and he swore, clamping a hand over the material he knew would be covering a hole to his insides.

"Well, well, well," a voice said harshly. "Seems you blue diamonds aren't quite bulletproof after all, eh?"

The Major snarled like a cornered animal as the man stepped towards him. He even managed to get the gun up before the boot impacted with his face and for the first time in decades, a mere human-being knocked out Artemis Fowl Senior's bodyguard.

* * *

><p><em>Principals before anyone else. Even family.<em>

He'd had it drilled into him for so long that this time he'd actually followed the rules. He couldn't remember a time he'd done that outside of training. In fact no, even at training, turning back for comrades had been a source of ribbing.

_You're a bodyguard, Domovoi, not some glory-seeking solider,_ Madame Ko would snap at him as he carried the final member of his team - tranquilised by 'enemy fire' - to safety. _It's time you started acting like one._

He'd never bothered to voice that it wasn't hero-worship he was seeking, it was just the uncontrollable need to guard people that he found hard to shake. It was his greatest weakness, as well as his best asset. Well there was more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. And none of the others had graduated at eighteen. He pulled out his gun and leapt up the stairs five at a time and slunk, crouched behind the counter.

The Major was slumped in the corner; gun loose in an open palm.

"Uncle?" he said warily, keeping his head well below the counter like a soldier below a trench parapet. The Major didn't move. Butler wasn't even sure if he was still breathing.

"Guess again," said the voice of a giant figure on the other side of the counter.

* * *

><p><strong>The Coca-Cola thing (other fizzy drinks are available) is actually true apparently. At least that's what we're told after canoeingswimming in minging canals/rivers etc.**

**By the way, this is the longest chapter yet. I almost chopped it like I did the last time it got past 6,000 words but I decided it would be better as a chunky-chapter :)**

**Sadly (because they were fun to write) that's the end of the Flashbacks. Nevermind, we're nearing the end! Oh wait... that's just as bad :/**

**Well, it's a f****ew more chapters yet I promise!**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O**


	11. Lights, Bullets, Action

**It has occurred to me that I should've put half that last Flashback in this chappie to stretch and even it out a bit more. Bum. Ah well. This chapter is way long enough as it is!**

**Thanks to:**

*** tech17 ***

*** 2whitie * **

*** KKCopper ***

*** Shadow Huntress * (- welcome to the thanks list! :) Thanks for the review and I'm glad you like it!)**

**for the awesome reviews that keep me editing chapters to put up instead of doing college assignments... but ho hum :)**

**As the title suggests, this is the showdown chapter I have been waiting to post since Round One of Butler v.s Drake. Here goes - Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER ELEVEN - Lights, Bullets, Action<strong>

Butler rolled into the stairwell, avoiding the shot by mere centimetres. The basement was the _last _place he wanted to take the fight, but it looked like he didn't have much of a choice. As in, the bullets following him didn't give him one.

Although he was certain he could take the younger blue diamond on easily this time (well, last time there had been concrete dust in his eyes and the sneaky bastard had used this to his advantage), Drake was still cautious as he rounded the corner. Fortunately for him. _Un_fortunately for Butler, who would have preferred a more fatal shot under these circumstances.

As it was, the Sig Sauer's bullet clipped the henchman's own gun, denting the barrel and rendering it mostly useless. It was testament to Drake's strength that he didn't let go his weapon.

"What is it with you freaks and shooting my friggen' gun?" he roared, not noticing in his anger that Butler was crouched on the third step.

And so he _was_ surprised when the hand shot out so fast the air whistled. Butler grabbed the wrist, twisting with the intention of breaking a few bones and forcing the gun to drop, but instead receiving the man's other fist in the face. Ornate knuckle-duster rings split his skin but Butler managed to block the second hit, concurrently giving Drake time to snatch hold of his collar instead.

Butler _wasn't_ surprised. He had been fully expecting him to fight back. This was just round two. So, regretting the move before he had even begun it, but hoping it would work in his favour in the long run, he fell backwards, using his weight to haul the man down the stairs behind him.

They tumbled head over boots, once, twice, both guns skittering across the floor as the men loosed them in favour for scrabbling for any purchase on the cold concrete before hitting the floor heavily.

Fall training ensured Butler didn't hit his head on the concrete... Drake, however, ensured that he did, banging his skull on the floor until Butler's knee came up and hit him in a particularly sensitive area. Obviously never having been a sufferer of that _particular_ session of Madame Ko's (pretty damn _evil_) focus training, Drake's ham fisted grip loosened for a fraction of a second whilst he swore and Butler put the moment, and his head, to good use, nutting his enemy in the nose. Blood spattered over both their faces and Butler bared his teeth in a grimace as he went for a pressure point jab. One under the freshly broken nose, one in the corner of the eye... but he had to stop to catch the hand heading for his own temple. More than technically, he was still the underdog here. Drake had nothing to lose.

Drake swung a fist back, beating him repeatedly around the face. Butler took another few blows before his own counter-hits started missing. He closed his eyes and rolled with the punches the best he could, concentrating on staying conscious and hitting upwards with his hands, slamming his enemy in the chin with the heel of his palms. He was not about to have his ass kicked by _anyone_.

Drake retaliated by digging a thumb into the fresh stitches in his arm - whether purposefully or not, it hurt like hell, and it gave him time to latch strong fingers around Butler's throat with his free hand. Butler had a fair amount of experience with being throttled, and so he didn't grapple with the hand and try to break the hold, instead swinging his own across his chest as best he could and bringing it back in a clean chop across Drake's windpipe. The man coughed and spluttered. They were _both_ choking.

The upper man clamped his other hand around his own throat in an attempt to protect it from further hits and Butler went for his temple instead. Once, twice... spots were appearing in front of his eyes. His arms were more _flailing_ now than hitting with their usual deadly accuracy but Drake was flapping his own free arm in an almost panicked series of sweeping gestures that were barely grazing Butler's skull.

Three heavy_ 'thwack'_s to the side of the head and Drake almost let go, stunned at the very least. The millisecond the grip loosened, Butler brought up his knees and threw the heftier guy as best he could. They rolled sideways and suddenly he had the upper-hand. Drake grabbed at him desperately but the hits had left him entirely disorientated and Butler somehow managed to cross the man's hands over his chest and pin him with his knees, glad of every gram of his almost-over-weight-ness and gulping in air as he used all the swing in his torso to elbow strike Drake to the side of the head. The man's eyes rolled back in his head and his body sunk beneath Butlers knees.

He knelt on his prey, banishing the black that was spreading from the edges of his vision like spilt ink and breathing deeply. When he was fairly sure he wasn't going to fall over when he did, Butler got off Drake's chest and stood swayingly. His nose was spouting blood and he pulled up the bottom of his jumper and rubbed some off his face, spitting blood onto the floor and checking he still had all his teeth with his tongue. None even loose, unlike his opponent, whose gold ones had been dislodged in the fight. Butler hoped he'd choke on them. Still, if this was Carker's personal bodyguard, that should mean he was the last straw. No-one else was coming. _Hopefully._

Nevertheless, Drake wouldn't be down for ever and he still had to check it was safe up above before he fetched the Fowls. As steadily as he could, he climbed up the stairs, edging round the corner this time and checking everywhere else before he let his eyes wander to the floor.

The Major hadn't moved, but there was no-one else in the ex-takeaway in any state to be fighting either. The front door was closed, which was odd since it only had one hinge left, but at least it kept everyone inside's condition a secret. Hopefully that would deter anyone else from entering just yet too.

He looked down at his uncle, an uneasy feeling clenching in his stomach at the sight of the invincible man lying pale and still on the floor. Blood was seeping in a rough puddle-shape into the material of the jumper, one hand covering the wound limply, the other still wrapped loosely around his gun.

_Principals then Family._

_Sod that_, Butler thought. _The principals are as safe as I can make them for now._

He worried for a moment that Drake would wake up and find their hiding place, but either way, he couldn't bring them out until he was certain no-one was going to start shooting at them up here. Just because no assailants had leapt out on him yet, didn't mean they wouldn't shoot once he brought more vulnerable people into the frame.

He crawled, army-style, across to his Uncle and grabbed his wrist, oddly hopeful that the man would wake up suddenly and try to break his own at any moment.

_Nothing._

He squeezed down hard, searching for a pulse, trying to block out the pounding of his own blood roaring in his head.

_Nothing._

For one of the longest and worst moments of his life.

_Nothing._

He closed his eyes, silencing his own breathing in order to concentrate and then...

_Throb._

Pause.

_Throb._

The simple _'whumpf'_ of blood being forced through his uncle's body calmed him instantly. Realising there was nothing else he could do, he placed the giant arm back over its owner's bloodied waist and stood up cautiously. No-one shot at him and all he could see of anyone left in the takeaway diner was a pair of legs sticking out from behind the shield of an overturned table. They weren't moving.

He staggered back down the stairs, still a little punch drunk. Everything was still in the basement too. It was eerie. Like being in one of his dreams where he was the only one left alive. Yes, he'd had plenty of those. Any soldier had. You just had to learn to shake them off after the first few, but that didn't mean you could forget them entirely.

Checking Drake and the two other unconscious men were still just that, he hauled open the freezer door. The pair inside cowered, shivering and he wiped his face on the back of his hand.

"It's OK. It's me. Let's go."

Angeline looked like she would have wanted to hug him, if it wasn't for the blood. All they had been able to hear was the snarling and crashes of the fight, staying low like they had been told, in the cold, dark freezer. Now they walked through the aftermath nervously.

"Is he dead?" Artemis asked in quietly morbid fascination as they skirted the slain giant.

"I don't know, so we best be going in case he wakes up," his mother said, ushering him past. She stepped quickly around the man called Travis but hesitated at the unconscious form of Mickey.

"Butler, you don't suppose...?"

The bodyguard refrained from sighing heavily. He knew what she was asking, but his brain was too swamped to come up with an argument to dissuade her.

"If it's too much trouble, I understand..." she faltered.

"OK," Butler shrugged. "If you're sure it's what you want, m'am."

The lady nodded and so he lifted the man bodily. Even if he awoke he wouldn't be able to walk far on that leg. And besides, he could prove useful as something to push ahead of them through the door as bullet-bait.

Checking the coast was clear once again before the trio slunk up the stairs, Butler took the lead, holding the limp man out before him to catch any bullets coming his way. None came and so he proceeded with caution and gestured the Fowls to stay low and follow him.

The staff area was empty but for the still form of The Major. Angeline stifled a gasp at the sight of her husband's bodyguard and Artemis reeled slightly at the blood so Butler pushed them past him, away from the door to the basement to the far corner of behind-the-counter and placed himself between them and The Major, with Mickey lying on his side by the basement doorway. Hopefully anyone coming up the stairs would trip over him.

Butler considered the situation and decided that being in the middle was good position defensively for once - or at least he could guard both parties best he could from here.

"Is Major..." Angeline opened her mouth to speak but Butler shushed her. He didn't want anyone hearing _exactly_ who was behind the counter.

"He's still alive," he whispered. "We need to get out of here but we're best waiting for back up first."

Angeline nodded, hand clasping her son's as though she would never let go. Butler knew what she was feeling. He was on the verge of losing too many people recently. He daren't move The Major for fear of causing more damage so, gesturing for the Fowls to stay where they were, he snuck another glance over the counter, trying to decide if it was worth trying the door. He didn't want them to be sat here like sitting ducks when Drake got up and there was no reliable way to lock the basement door. Or at least none that would hold an angry Drake down there.

It was silent in the takeaway. Not even the sounds of laboured breathing to give away how many men were lying on the floor. By the turn of events, Butler was fairly sure at least a few had turned tail and run. And the ones left were the ones that were unable to. Sirens were approaching but he'd wait until they arrived before letting the Fowls walk out into the street. Even then, a sniper could take a shot and he'd have to go first to make sure they didn't. And if he then got shot, there would be no-one left to guard the Fowls since then there was The Major, who was in no position to do so. Butler wanted to make sure he got a medic on him as soon as possible. Preferably _before_ Drake came hunting for revenge. Or this guy Mrs Fowl had wanted bringing along woke up and turned out to be a backstabbing bastard.

He considered opening the door to the kitchen and shoving his temporary human shield in there. After all, he only had Angeline's word on whether or not he would wake up and try to kill them.

"I'm gonna move this guy out of the way," he whispered.

The way he said it offered no openings for the _'Why?'_ or _'Where?'_ that were in Angeline's head so instead she nodded and said, "Thank-you for bringing him up here. He really was quite pleasant to us."

_He tied you up and held you hostage woman! What on earth are you talking about?_ Butler wanted to yell, but instead he just muttered that it wasn't a problem and lifted the man back up.

The only thing causing concern was two others he had taken out in the beginning so easily. But that had been before he had used up a good portion of his energy fighting Drake. Opening the door could be like opening a whole can of worms if they had woken up.

Especially since his gun was somewhere downstairs. Butler muttered a curse.

"Language, boy," a voice rasped.

Butler spun round, almost dropping Mickey, a rare look of surprise on his face. Angeline and Artemis both gasped in shock, neither of them knowing what to say or do. Artemis had already assessed the injuries from the corner they were crouched in by the vending machine and ran the possibilities through the medical section of his growing brain. The shot, by the blood, had to be somewhere in the region of the lower left abdomen. Better than a shot in the chest by a normal person's standards, but then again, he was almost sure the Butlers _slept_ in their bulletproof vests and so perhaps a shot in the chest would have been more desirable this time. Or at least better than a one that could be causing fatal amounts of blood poisoning from ruptured gut tissue leaking toxins into his father's bodyguard's bloodstream whilst they waited for the emergency services to arrive.

Placing the 'nice' man back by the doorway, Butler dropped to the floor next to his uncle.

"You got... the big un'?" The Major was forcing the words out through gritted teeth.

"Yeah he's down," Butler assured him, some hidden part of him laughing at his uncle calling another human being _'big'_.

"Perma...nent...ly?"

"Doubt it."

"Then get... them out... before... he... gets up," The Major panted. "And... will you stop carrying... _bloody strangers_... about... like some sort... of... St. Bernard... boy?"

Butler gave a slightly tense chuckle. OK, so his uncle was pretty much lucid, his charge's were unharmed so far and the sirens were closer now. It was almost time to make a move. He could cope with this. He made a split decision.

"Come on, you're coming with us," Butler grabbed his uncle's shoulder. A hand gripped his wrist back firmly enough to give him some hope that there was life in the old dog yet.

"No. You're going to... get _them_... out," he said more firmly. "I'm fine."

Butler gently loosened the bloodied fingers and lifted the other palm covering his uncle's stomach. Blood was soaking heavily through the jumper now. _Not good. Not __**fine**__._

"Major, really. You're badly injured," Artemis said nervously. "The sooner you reach an ambulance the better."

The Major shook his head firmly.

"Thank-you for... your concern, young sir," he said, trying to speak normally. "But you're more important... I can wait."

Butler knew what his uncle meant. He meant that if he, Butler, was helping him to get out of here, he would have to divide his attention between his aiding his uncle and guarding the Fowls.

"Can you walk?" Angeline asked, also realising the reason The Major was refusing help. If he could walk himself then Butler would be able to focus more on _them_ than his uncle. "We can hardly leave you after all you've done."

But as The Major tried to sit up he was forced to clamp his eyes shut and hiss through his teeth.

"They're right. I'm not leaving you like this," Butler said quietly. "Don't even think about it."

"Go. That's an order," The Major growled.

Butler was about to completely disobey and haul his uncle to his feet, regardless of the amount of pain that would cause the stubborn old git, when Angeline, who had wisely been keeping an eye on the doorway to the basement, screamed.

"Look out!"

Butler spun, catching the blow on the arm. Drake, apparently, was already up. Butler went to pole-punch his opponent in the stomach but the man leapt back out of the way, tripping on Mickey and stumbling, giving Butler time to leap to his feet.

_See,_ his sarcastic side muttered. _The human doorstop **did** come in useful._

Drake recovered his step and waved a gun at Artemis and Angeline, who pressed themselves against the side of the counter. Butler's adrenaline spiked once again as he realised it wasn't the gun he had crippled, but another. It was borrowed off Travis, little did Butler know. Although the term 'borrowed' suggested the original owner had some input in the offering of the lent item.

"You two. Back downstairs," he spat out blood as he spoke and the pair crept towards the basement door with terrified eyes. "You, up against the wall and I might kill you quickly."

Butler backed off with a snarl, wondering whether, in his concussed state, Drake would miss the kill shot if he ducked for one of the knives in his boots. He was fairly sure he could throw it accurately enough to hit the pulsing jugular on the man's thick neck.

"Or would you rather bleed to death like him?" Drake asked, lowering the gun's sights from head to body. Butler's knees tensed and he . Reaction training came into play here. If he had been up against another blue-diamond he wouldn't even have considered it but Drake was cocky. About the very worst trait, mentally, along with arrogance, that a bodyguard could have.

"Stop taunting him! You have us - what else do you want?" Angeline shouted, some part of her angrier than she was scared now. Drake turned to her to answer her, a toothless sneer on his face and, in that very second, Butler had cleared the space between them and, missing taking the Fowls with them by centimetres, rugby tackled him through the door.

_Who'd of thought we'd get to fall down the same flight twice? _Butler thought as his head missed impacting with a step by about a hair's width.

This time, both rolled apart on impact and sprung to their feet. Butler was up faster, kicking Drake in the knee and dropping him to the floor. Drake fired a shot that hit the ceiling and Butler wrestled the gun from his grip, throwing it across the room. Drake scuttled backwards on the floor dragging his leg and searching for the other working handgun. Butler's gun. The owner dived on top of him but Drake ducked forward, dragging him over his head as best he could and smashing his opponent's skull into the wall. Plaster board sent out plumes of choking dust and Butler just thought himself lucky it hadn't been one of the concrete ones.

_Perhaps should have seen that one coming,_ he thought, regaining his feet and leaning on the wall for support.

What he _didn't _see coming was one of the previously unconscious men from before, the one without the broken leg, the one Angeline hadn't liked, returning to being very much awake and joining the fight. Being attacked from two sides, Butler went for it with everything he had, but the man that wasn't Drake took over whilst the bigger man rested. Butler had him though. It would have been an almost enjoyable fight if it wasn't for Drake waiting to tag team.

Drake ran at him and Butler decided in that moment to charge right back. The ceiling was low for men of their stature and if he timed it right...

His hand grabbed the naked light-bulb and the glass crushed like an eggshell in his grip. He slammed the burning fragments into the side of Drake's head. It went almost dark, but for the light spilling down the stairs and lighting up a patch of the floor. The man bellowed in pain, scrubbing his face. Butler would have liked to have continued his plan for Drake, which involved ripping the wire further out of the ceiling and pressing the broken light fitting into his neck, hopefully electrocuting him with 240 volts. But the man jumped back, still rubbing molten glass off his cheek, letting the smaller assailant take his place, somewhat more reluctantly than he had been originally. And with good reason.

The counter-attack took all of a few seconds. Travis had barely stepped forwards, hands badly arranged in a ridiculous attempt to block any hits. Butler simply grabbed the man by his shoulders and kneed him in the stomach, then spun him forcibly into his comrade, who dived out of the way. The man returned to unconsciousness as he hit his head off a crate when Drake didn't bother to catch him - he'd never liked Travis - instead taking advantage of the way the throw left Butler unbalanced and spun on the spot, kicking him hard in the chest. The Fowl bodyguard stumbled backwards and hit his head off the solid concrete ground, tiny white grains of light darting across his vision as he tried to get up. Drake stepped back and scooped the gun from the floor, limping towards his quarry.

Butler shook his head to clear the stars and tried to scrabble out of the way, almost back on his feet when Drake fired three times into the dim light.

They thudded into his target, the velocity of the impact knocking him out of his half-crouch.

But the Kevlar vest held. Just.

He rolled over and dived towards the other gun. Another bullet hit him in the back.

The gun glinted in the light from the doorway and he could see the barrel was smooth and un-dented.

Butler snatched up the weapon and rolled, aiming as he flipped onto his back and pumping the trigger before Drake could so much as duck.

But nothing happened. The magazine was empty.

It wasn't his gun.

Drake's face went from very worried to very pleased in under a second and he leapt forward out of the rectangle of light, landing two footed on Butler's chest. It knocked the wind out of him and Drake stepped off, stomping one boot down on the floor, and the toe of the other against Butler's throat.

In the few seconds left of his life, Butler realised it must be his _own_ gun that was pointed at him. _Ironic._ He tried to breathe but the plasterboard clogged his mouth and lungs as it was, and then Drake's boot pressed down harder as he struggled to throw the man's weight. Drake took careful aim this time, avoiding any Kevlar in a shot that was going to leave a mess. Both of them heard the cheery tinkle of the front door opening and Butler's bodyguard brain dimly hoped that it was the Fowls escaping.

He didn't hear anyone approaching. Neither did Drake.

Butler grabbed the ankle at his throat and tried to force it upwards. Drake was having none of it.

"Why don't you people just _die?_" he spat, cocking the gun and aiming for the younger Butler's head.

"_You_ die," a voice growled.

Drake turned, gun and all, to the source and a trio of bullets hit him, one in the collarbone, shattering it instantly and making his gun arm go limp, two more in the chest, carrying on through his torso and exploding in a shower of blood on the other side. Drake started to fall and, covered in the red spray, Butler twisted the leg he was holding before Drake flattened him and tipped him onto his side.

Inhaling plasterboard and choking, Butler crawled as far away from Drake as possible before he hauled himself up on a crate and breathed properly.

Drake was gasping too, mouth bubbling with blood, a hand reaching out as though to cling to life itself, face contorted in a mix of pain, dismay and fury. Something inside Butler hardened. Everyone was dying anyway, just some got there quicker. It was kill or be killed. It always had been in his life. He strode over and took his gun from the dying man's hand, wiping it once before tucking it lightly into its holster.

"He dead... yet?" panted the voice. Shading his eyes with a hand, Butler looked up towards his saviour. Obviously the lack of oxygen was getting to his head, as he hadn't even considered the gunman.

It was his uncle, of course.

"On his way out," Butler coughed, wiping his face. His hand came away bloody, but that wasn't unexpected. It seemed there wasn't a single inch of skin unbeaten. Although likely he wouldn't have many bruises to prove it. It was a family trait to bruise like a brick.

"And yourself?" The Major asked through gritted teeth. He gripped the handrail and hauled himself up the few stairs he had come down, feeling like he was holding his stomach together with the other.

"Still kicking," Butler nodded, taking the stairs more slowly this time, keeping one eye on his slain enemy.

"There's paramedics... out front," The Major tripped and leant heavily against the wall with a hiss of pain. Ignoring Drake for now, Butler grabbed his uncle round the waist and steadied him.

"Thanks. Didn't think I'd get out of that one," Butler said, half lifting him up the last few steps of the narrow staircase.

"You got... your arse... kicked...boy," The Major chuckled slightly.

"And you got shot and knocked out. Three impossible things on one day, eh?"

"Shut your... trap," The Major muttered, but there was a small smile on his face as his nephew helped him through the tangle of tables and chairs and out of the door. It was incredibly bright compared to the half-light of the basement and cheap artificial glow of the take-away. The sun bathed them in a golden glow and the pair of them blinked in the radiance.

And then there they were, laser dots of twenty policemen hovering over their chests as they stood half-in, half-out of the doorway.

"Same old welcome, eh?" Butler said, raising his hands half-heartedly.

"We don't look like... the stereotypical... good-guys," The Major swallowed some pride and leant on the doorframe, not going so far as to use his nephew for support. Finally someone seemed to notice all the blood and started warning them to stay still and keep their hands on their heads, approaching quickly. "They don't seem... too... happy."

"Well you did cause one hell of a traffic jam for them," Butler shrugged.

The Major barked a weak laugh as he allowed two paramedics and an armed police officer to shepherd him to an ambulance.

Butler too, let himself be cuffed - or at least once he had cast an eye around and seen that the Fowls were safe, huddled under blankets together, being comforted by a policewoman he vaguely recognised. They were all safe. Or at least safe-ish. That would have to be good enough for now.

"What happened in there? How many are inside?" one of the officials asked him, sitting him down on the back step of a riot van whilst the paramedics checked for serious injuries.

Skipping the first question, Butler answered. "Alive? Maybe two or three. Altogether, I don't know."

The man looked a little shocked at his blasé attitude to the body count, but Butler couldn't bring himself to care as he explained shortly about Drake and the others. He wasn't sure whether or not to be thoroughly annoyed when he saw Drake on a stretcher, albeit handcuffed and taking eight officers to carry him. Carker's bodyguard was very much alive and gasping abuse through the oxygen mask. Anyone could survive on one lung, but Butler was hoping The Major might have hit both with his spread. He consoled himself that at least that meant he wouldn't have _another _murder charge to be going on with.

"Do you have anything you shouldn't have on you?" the nearest policeman asked him cautiously.

"Yes," Butler said bluntly. He spat blood onto the road and wiped some off his chin with the back of his cuffed hands. It was probably Drake's when he thought about it. _Nice._

"O-kaaay," the man continued. "Care to elaborate?"

"I'm a bodyguard. Theirs actually," Butler sighed, gesturing to the Fowls. "I have licences for everything on me but I don't plan on handing anything over until I'm sure they're safe."

"I can assure you they are currently under police guard as ex-hostages. And besides, you're cuffed up mate. How are you going to do anything?"

Butler itched to point out at least eight basic security flaws the so-called police-guard had left that could get his charges killed, but instead, he just gave the officer a look that said simply, _'Do I look like I need my hands free to kill people?'_ and said aloud, "Then you won't mind if I keep my stuff on me, will you?"

The man looked like he really _did_ mind and was about to start forcing him to hand over his armoury when a paramedic shouted over to them.

"Hey you - big guy! You're Stefan, right?"

Butler looked over his shoulder to where a paramedic was waving. His head hurt. Why was the man calling him Stefan? Stefan was... an alias. Right. He recognised the shouter from _somewhere_ but the connection had been bashed out of sync in his head and he couldn't quite remember who the man was...

"You know this man don't you? He's your Uncle Cons...something," he gestured to The Major, flat on his back on a gurney. Butler immediately sensed wrong, the happy-ending-feeling he'd had just moments ago vanishing. "You two were at the fire at _Skylight_ yesterday, right?"

"Yes," Butler said as the connection clicked. The paramedic was the very same one that had taken Mr. Fowl and the waiter to hospital. "And yes he's my uncle."

"Do you know his blood type?"

"Same as mine."

"Fantastic, can you just come over here?"

Butler went to get up off the back of the riot van, testing the strength of the handcuffs until they creaked.

"Please. I can help him," he said, knowing that threats weren't going to get him anywhere right now.

They weren't out of the woods yet, but his arresting officer wisely gave him a bit of slack, walking over to the ambulance with him.

"The boy and the woman put in a good word for you, else I wouldn't be doing this," he warned.

Butler couldn't bring himself to care and half-towed the man to the back of the emergency vehicle.

"How badly are you injured yourself?" the paramedic asked.

The Major was hooked up to an oxygen mask, teeth bared in a snarl of pain as he drummed his fingers on the gurney in a _pain-pattern_ - a technique taught at Madame Ko's to control all forms of discomfort. They'd cut away his jumper, the ugly hole in his muscled abdomen seeping freely. At least that meant the bleeding wasn't entirely internal. And the more blood that flowed out, the less likely the bullet had hit an organ.

Butler mentally flicked through his own injuries. Mostly bruises, bust lip, nose that wasn't feeling too clever and a jaw that clicked when he talked but that would pass.

"I'm fine," Butler said, checking his arms and chest. The holes in his jumper had a few eyebrows raised so he explained simply; "I've got a kev-vest on."

"You're bleeding," pointed out the paramedic, beckoning him to learn far enough over for him to see the split in his shaven head. It had been bleeding quite profusely, but was already clotting now and nowhere near bad enough to be classed at life-threatening.

"Nose bleed. I'll be fine. Trust me," Butler said firmly, as though daring the medic not to take his word for it.

"You'll do," the man sighed reluctantly.

The finger-tapping stopped and The Major seemed to freeze slightly. The paramedic looked worried.

"Right. Let's start. I'm Dan, what's his name again?"

"Ah... Constantin," Butler said quickly.

"Jeeze that's a mouthful..." Dan muttered.

"Just call him by his rank - Major, we all do," Butler fabricated an excuse quickly. To be honest, it was true, but as far as the paramedic was concerned, he was treating Major Constantin Bashkir, ex-Russian military and talking to his nephew Stefan Bashkir and so far, Butler thought it was best if it stayed that way.

"Right then. Major? I need you to lie still and hang on in there ok?" Dan said to The Major, then to Butler; "Have you given blood before?"

The younger Butler nodded, rolling up his sleeve and baring the veins bulging under the skin on the muscled limb. The paramedic half-pulled him into the ambulance and Butler had to duck through the doorway.

"He'll have to come with us. If you have to too then take a seat," he said before the policeman could protest. Then to Butler, "Great, just sit there. Sharp scratch now."

Dan jabbed him with a hollow blood drawing needle attached to a machine. Scarlet life-juice threaded its way through a clear tube and into a machine that whirred and clicked. The paramedic patted The Major's arm.

"You sure you're the same blood group?" he asked, pausing with the needle.

Butler nodded. "Certain."

He didn't only have hospital paperwork as proof, The Major had saved his life through a blood transfusion before. Butler had gone through a second-floor window with an assassin, then through the conservatory roof below, landing in a swimming pool that had needed a full cleaning and water change after the incident. Butler had survived the lacerations he'd received, and the blood loss they caused, thanks to some quick thinking and action by his uncle and the first paramedic on the scene. The assassin hadn't been so lucky.

"Hold still Major," the present one said and stuck The Major's arm with the needle leading out of the machine.

"Wait. I need to stay with the woman and the boy," Butler said quickly. "We're their bodyguards."

"That explains a lot," Dan sighed. "Well I can't unhook you now."

"I'm not going without them."

"He'll die if we don't get him to a hospital," the paramedic said seriously.

Butler didn't even falter. "Trust me. It'll be what he wants."

The paramedic sighed in annoyance and called to another police officer. "Could you follow us with those hostages please? This man isn't willing to go without them and my patient isn't going to survive long without surgery."

Actually, Butler would have preferred them to be in the ambulance _with_ him. Then again, it was already very cramped with him, The Major, the paramedic and the policeman and he couldn't really be so choosy when he was lucky enough to be getting out here in the back of _this_ kind of emergency vehicle rather than the one reserved for criminals.

And so he had to make do with staring through the small, blacked-out window at the flashing blue lights tailing them as the ambulance started up its sirens and made its way to the hospital.

That limited view of his charges and watching The Major's chest rise and fall as shakily as Butler felt was all he had to keep him going.

* * *

><p><strong>I promise they are my favourite characters, I just have a thing about putting them in life-threatening situations to over-prove just quite how awesome they are :)<strong>

**And there were no splits whatsoever in this chapter! It's already over 6,000 words so I didn't bother writing in a bit about Artemis Senior, he'll just have to wait until the next chappie.**

**Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it,**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O**


	12. Russian Roulette

**So, apologies for the delay but I had some issues with plausibility law/medical wise. Which may or may not still be present (brush over them please if they are, my excuse is they are Butlers and Fowls. They can do anything. Sorry if the stuff I haven't got 100% bugs anyone too much.).**

**Thanks to:**

*** tech17 ***

*** Steinbock ***

*** Beckett Simpleton ***

*** Q the omnipotent night fury * - welcome to the list and thanks for the praise!**

*** KKCopper ***

**for the reviews :)**

**As usual, although it's great to get a fav or alert (and you guys _will_ be thanked at the end) I like to give a special thanks to those of you who take the time to type me something back. It's very much appreciated so TA! :)**

**This really has turned out to be quite a humongous chapter but ah well!**

**Enough waffling. Let's wrap this thing up - Onwards!**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER TWELVE - Russian Roulette<strong>

After asking a few questions and getting no proper answers, the paramedic had focussed on his work. Butler tried to keep an eye on the policecar behind them, checking it followed their every turn without trouble, although not having a clue what he would do if it, for some reason, didn't.

Once he was fairly certain that it would continue to do so, he turned to his uncle.

Fresh white dressing soaked up the fresh flow of blood from the dark hole in The Major's left side as a scrawl of statistics appeared, scratched in biro-ink on Dan the paramedic's arm. Heart rate, blood pressure, other general statistics. They didn't look all that good. Butler knew the risks. Poisoning from the various digestive bodily organs the bullet could have hit, internal bleeding which might not be discovered until he was sent for an x-ray, outer-blood loss despite the ongoing transfusion... There were many ways things could go very wrong. He swallowed dryly, wishing he had some water to rinse the irony taste and claggy plaster dust out of his mouth.

With every bump the ambulance raced over, The Major jerked, mimicking consciousness. At one point he grunted in pain and struggled for a moment, as though reminding them that he wasn't going to give up that easily.

"Woah, chill out there, Major," Dan said, trying to settle his patient. "Nearly there now."

And, thankfully, they were.

They screeched into the emergency department and everything seemed to happen at an accelerated speed. Shouts buzzed around the air, bodies bustling out of the way as they were taken from the ambulance and into a crammed corridor. Butler half-jogged alongside the gurney, still trying to turn back over his shoulder to see what had become of the policecar following them. His own police-guide seemed to realise that he would have to wait and simply followed, making sure he kept Butler in sight at all times.

The Major's breathing changed, like a car switching gears.

And then, so suddenly that one of the nurses screamed, his eyes snapped opened and he tried to sit up, simultaneously reaching for his gun, which had been confiscated and yelling loudly.

Ironically - or usefully, whichever way it was viewed - the language he was shouting and swearing in, was Russian. Butler, perhaps the only one big enough too, pinned him quickly, trying not to disturb either of their canulas too much. The gurney already, straining under the weight, creaked ominously. But everyone was more bothered about the thrashing giant than the state of the equipment.

"It's me, Uncle. It's Stefan," Butler said in English and as clearly as he could, aware that the combination of his uncle's currently, likely fuzzy, vision and his own mask of blood probably weren't making recognition or remembering their stories any easier. Also, if he started calling him 'Butler'... or worse... it would only confuse identity matters. "Let them deal with you. You need some help this time."

The Major ripped off his oxygen mask.

"_**What?**_" he demanded in Russian, staring at his nephew in confusion and grabbing hold of his arms as he tried to sit up. "_**Where am I? Where are the principals?**_"

"_**Easy,**_"Butler said firmly, recognising the language and translating his words into it. If his uncle was working in Russian-mode automatically, it would be easiest to keep him that way for now, rather than trying to reset his language centre. Besides, it worked well with their story. It was likely brought on by blood-loss and head trauma and would only last temporarily. Or at least Butler hoped so. Juliet spoke only enough words in Russian to explain who she was and, more importantly, who her family were. And as for the Fowls, if The Major was stuck speaking Russian, life was about to get a bit more difficult communication-wise._**"Easy there. You're in the hospital. Drake shot you. The principals are fine. They're under police guard. As soon they unhook this blood-thing I'll go find them."**_

Butler congratulated himself on his pretty accurate translation. OK so _**'blood-thing' **_wasn't exactly perfect, but hopefully he'd said enough to reassure his uncle that he wasn't under attack, or whatever was going on in the old soldier's brain. It had been a few years since Butler had spoken Russian fluently and, after the battering his head had taken tonight, it was surprising his brain worked at all. Whatever he had managed to say, seemed to have been understandable, as his uncle relaxed the vice-grip on his wrists (thankfully because it was actually starting to leave marks) and stared at him, eyes still a little unfocussed.

The medical staff looked at him equally as blankly and Butler shrugged with an apologetic grin.

"Russian," he explained. "I can ask him to answer you in English if you like? He should be ok with that if you don't have a translator."

"Er... that would be great."

"_**Uncle...**_"

"_**Where are we? Why are you speaking Russian ?**_" The Major frowned, as though he wasn't the one who initiated the use of the language.

"_**Because**_..." Butler started, then switched languages. "Nevermind. Just speak English. We're in Dublin."

"That's right, Major. Give us some good old Irish if you can," Dan joked. "Do you know who you are?"

"_**We're the Bashkirs, right? Why are they calling me Major?**_" The Major said to Butler.

"Because _**Constantin**_ is a mouthful for the Irish," his nephew shrugged. "Now - English, please?"

Dan raised an eyebrow.

"He asked why you called him Major," Butler explained, repeating hurriedly. "English, if you can, uncle."

The policeman had started to look as though he wanted to get him unhooked and questioned as soon as possible and he needed to make sure he wouldn't be leaving behind someone the medical staff couldn't negotiate with.

"_**Right.**_ Right. English. Got it." The Major sunk back onto the gurney and nodded. The adrenaline was seeping back out of his system. And as much as he loathed to admit it, he needed medical attention. Now or sooner, preferably. Whilst they had been talking, Dan had passed on his details and statistics, further checks had been done and arrangements made to prepare an operating theatre.

"OK, mask back on," one of the medical staff said, replacing it. "This man needs to get into surgery as soon as possible."

The oxygen mask stopped any more coherent words but at least The Major wasn't demanding to be let up anymore so Butler let go of his arms as they speed-walked on, straight into surgery. They unhooked the pair quickly and linked The Major up to an IV. He opened his eyes and looked at his nephew for a second. Butler brought his hand to his face horizontally and flicked it away quickly, the thumb and forefinger arrangement signing 'Good Luck'. Predictably The Major rolled his eyes and gave him a lazy thumbs up. Butler knew his superior was taking the mick out of him for being so obviously concerned, but for the first time in a long time, the odds weren't entirely in their favour survival-wise and the younger wanted his uncle to know he cared about that.

"You'll need more than that," Butler grunted, watching them knock his uncle out with a sedative and grudgingly allowing the policeman to re-cuff him.

He wasn't talking to The Major.

"I'll decide that, thanks," the surgeon said, frowning at him.

"Just saying," Butler shrugged.

"I'm sorry but I'm going to have to ask you to..." he turned to the policeman.

"Yeah, yeah, leave. Right?" Butler squinted in the bright lights.

"Are you sure you're ok?" the paramedic that had brought them in asked.

"Yeah. I'll just go wait with the others, or wherever this guy takes me," he threw over his shoulder as he and the policeman weaved his way out through the corridor, past other A&E patients.

"Alright. See you around, Stefan," Dan shouted after him, still looking concerned.

His arresting officer too, looked decidedly unsettled as they walked back out towards the ambulance bay where a police-car was waiting.

As they reached the carpark, an older looking policeman strode over and the man with Butler acknowledged him with a nod.

"Sir."

"You may release this man, officer," the sergeant said, checking details on a black notebook similar to the one Butler had stolen.

Both Butler and the policeman looked at him incredulously.

"What?"

"What, _sir,_" the sergeant frowned. "And under the statements of the two hostages, he and the other big bald fellow are on temporary bail until we can process the others down at the station. Far too many coming in as it is this morning. We're out of cells, these two need treating here and the story of the hostages checks out. I have their word these men can be trusted. If not, I have the details of where to find them."

Butler kept his face neutral, not wanting to betray what he suspected the Sergeant already knew. If he or his uncle didn't want to be found, it wasn't going to happen.

"Really?" the police officer looked like a fisherman who had just caught the biggest catch of his life and had now been ordered by his captain to throw the Great White back into the sea.

"Don't question my decision, officer," the grey haired man warned.

"Yessir," the man muttered.

"And you, Tiny," he jabbed a finger at Butler. "Had better not make me regret this."

Butler raised an eyebrow at the nickname but had to admire the man's nerve as he un-cuffed him.

"I'd ask you to go get yourself cleaned up if I thought you would, but please consider it."

"OK," Butler said, still rather stunned by the turn of events.

_But how often do things go our way without a consequence?_ warned his suspicious nature.

"Go on, get out of here before I change my mind," the man flapped a hand at him dismissively.

Butler actually set off towards the A&E doors, almost unnoticed since a hospital was about the only place, other than a battlefield, that he could wander around looking like this without causing great quantities hysterical alarm.

For the first time in a long time, Butler felt almost lost. His uncle was fighting for his life in surgery, his charge was in someone else's care, which he would have to remedy at any moment and he was stood in the A&E hallway of an Irish hospital.

He stumbled to the nearest plastic chair, hoping it would react favourably to him collapsing on it and decided to give his head three seconds to stop spinning before he set off in search for the Fowls.

Something buzzed against his leg and he actually jumped up, to the alarm of the closest A&E patients. Apparently he was still practically _high_ on adrenaline - although he couldn't understand how his body was continuing to manage to manufacture the stuff. The vibration turned out to be his much-abused phone. He had no idea how that was still working either. The screen was well and truly buggered, so he took a chance that it wouldn't be someone from his past choosing to try to catch up at an inopportune moment and answered it. It wasn't a very big risk to take, to be honest.

"Hello?"

The word was more of a question than a statement.

"_Bro? That's you right?" _Juliet's voice came through the smashed speaker sounding tinny.

"Yeah it's me."

"_You sound..."_

"Punched? Battered? Half-dead?"

"_Yeah... those. Did you find them? Are you all ok? Mr. Fowl rang us, like, 30 seconds ago asking if we'd heard where you guys were. I told him I ring you, then ring him right back. So where are you all? Have you found them yet?"_

_Too many questions,_ Butler's brain groaned. He forced it into action once again.

"Right. Uh. Don't worry him. Yeah we got them and they're fine. I'm at... er..." Butler cast around for the name of the building. "Some hospital, at the moment. Uncle's getting... checked out for something. Get Mr. Fowl to tell you where he is and I'll borrow a car or something and come get him."

"_Are you sure you're all ok?"_

"At the moment, Jules," her brother assured her. He wasn't lying. He had hope for their uncle yet. "Now ring him and ring me back, ok?"

"'Kay," Juliet sounded reluctant to put the phone down. "Ring you in a sec."

She put the phone down and Butler started walking towards the exit. If he was going to have to _'borrow'_ a car, he better start asking around to see if anyone would_ 'lend'_ him one. Although looking as he currently did, the chances of that happening _voluntarily_ were even lower than usual. And that was next-to-nothing as it was. Butler wondered if it made him a bad person for not being above pick-pocketing sick and injured people.

_I think we past the **'bad person'** stage a looong time ago, Dom..._ his conscience muttered wryly.

A semi-familiar ringtone cut though the hubbub of the A&E department and Butler looked towards it automatically, on his way towards a promising looking old couple car-key-wise. All he had to pull was the _'I'm a poor misunderstood beat up guy who needs to get home to bring my little sister to see our shot uncle who's in surgery'_ act. Simple. He wouldn't even have to lie.

His gaze fell on the man at the reception desk and Butler stopped in his tracks, doing a double-take and veering towards him instead. The old couple looked more than a little relieved.

"We really do need to have a signature to let you go," the receptionist was saying, pushing a pen across the desk.

"Er... I really don't... um..." the man stammered, fiddling with his phone to try to shut it up one way or another.

"He's with me," Butler said, placing a firm hand on the man's shoulder. The captured person jumped, recognising him just before he started screaming, or trying to run, which would never have been in a good idea.

Butler snatched the phone from the man's hand and answered it curtly, then cutting the call before she could start a conversation. "Got him Jules. We'll be home in a bit."

"Good Lord, man! You nearly frightened the life out of me!"

"Sorry, sir," Butler muttered. Mr. Fowl blinked at him. Perhaps he should have said something more professional, such as 'My apologies, Mr. Fowl' but his brain was functioning to the bare minimum and that involved bodyguarding and breathing, in that order, with no room for manners or polite speech. "The others are with the police. I'm going to meet them now if you'll come with me that'd be..."

Butler left the sentence hanging. Not for effect. He just couldn't think of the right word.

"Desirable?"

"Yes. That."

"Butler do you need medical attention," Artemis Senior frowned at him, surveying his face, which, despite the family reputation of bruising like a brick, was swollen in places and starting to darken. Blood was encrusted around the collar of the hoodie he was wearing and in face-printed patterns across his front where he had used the material to wipe his face.

"No, sir."

"Are you alri..."

"Yes, sir," Butler said more firmly, trying to concentrate on anything other than the buzzing pain in his head and the fact that his muscles weren't responding _nearly_ as effectively as they usually did.

The receptionist who had watched the entire exchange huffed impatiently. "Are you going to sign out or not?"

Mr. Fowl looked at him with the same look he gave The Major when he needed help. The younger Butler wasn't sure that he liked it. He didn't have the thirty-odd years experience with the man as his uncle had.

"Erm... yeah. Sign yourself out and let's go find your family."

Artemis looked around shiftily and whispered conspiratorially, "Fowl?"

"Sorry, sir?" Butler looked at him utterly perplexed. _He_ was Mr. Fowl. Why on earth was he calling...?

_Oh._

Butler's brain took in the fact that Artemis Senior was tapping the hospital release form with the over-used biro.

"Yes sir," he corrected himself.

Mr. Fowl signed quickly and they exited the building together, Butler picking out the police car with the Fowls in it easily with his trained eyes advantaged height. They strode over, a mockery of the pair they should have been, one too old, one too young.

Angeline saw her husband from the window and opened the door, dragging Little Artemis behind her.

"Timmy!" she called. "Oh my God, Timmy!"

"Angeline?" Artemis Senior began to run clumsily towards his wife, Butler followed close enough to guard, far enough away to allow the family moment to continue unhindered by his ever present form.

The trio embraced, gabbling apologies, declarations of adoration and, in Artemis Senior's case, self-reprimanding.

But Butler couldn't relax. Part of him was yelling at his soldier's sixth sense to shut the hell up. He'd fought, been shot, watched his uncle bleeding out on the floor, barely managed to rescue his charge... _What else could possibly go wrong with today?_ Of course you should never think that.

A car screeched into the carpark. Butler drew the gun from his waistband out of instinct, which immediately had the police on edge with him, rather than the car. The sergeant raised his hands, but in exasperation rather than submission.

"What did I tell you, Tiny? Put that bloody thing away unless you have your licence papers on you and a damn good reason to use it."

Butler did have his papers on him. They were in a wallet, along with several others. All with different names on.

He lowered the weapon reluctantly, reaching into his jeans for the right wallet. There were papers in his pockets that he didn't particularly want or need the police officers rifling through.

Then a man that Butler recognised instantly and nearly shot dead on the spot leapt out of the suspicious vehicle and started running towards the hospital.

"Don't shoot!" one of the officers shouted, taser out and aimed nervously at the man perfectly at ease with using the live-ammunition handgun.

Butler considered completely ignoring him, but holstered his gun. He didn't need shot at any more times today thank-you very much.

"That man is responsible for all this," Mr. Fowl said, breaking away from his family.

"You're sure?" the head sergeant asked.

"Definitely." Butler growled, torn between defending the Fowls and going after Carker.

Thankfully the police did the second option for him. Surrounding Carker quickly and grabbing him before he made the door. People in the hospital were starting to point and stare.

"Butler, could you follow me a second?" Artemis Senior asked seriously. "Actually? Where's Major?"

He had been expecting his bodyguard to be at the car guarding his wife and child whilst the younger Butler was treated for injuries The Major would never be careless enough to receive.

"In surgery for a bullet wound," Butler didn't beat around the bush. "I'll guard you until he's well again. If we're leaving are you two coming too or staying with the police guard?"

_Who have let you get out of the car and stand unguarded for at least three minutes already, _added his bodyguard brain.

"Yes," Angeline and Artemis Junior said instantly. Mr. Fowl gaped for a moment, but steeled himself at the sight of Carker. He was going to have _words_ with the insufferable coward.

"Right, then. Please stay close," Butler said, almost wearily. Three people were hard enough to guard as it was, without his annoying injuries.

Surprisingly, whether it was the shock of The Major not being there, or their situation, not one of the Fowls argued with him. Artemis set off and Butler followed his uncle's charge to where Carker was being detained.

"Please, I just want to see my bodyguard. I know he's been taken in here!" Carker was yelling and the sneering speech on Fowl's lips faded away at the look of pure and true panic on the man's face.

"Carker?"

"You!" he snarled. "It's all _your _fault!"

"Now, James, please," Mr. Fowl sighed. "If you hadn't have..."

"Not you," Carker spat. "_Him!_"

Butler wasn't fazed by the vehement look of loathing the man was shooting at him but hospital staff drifted over uncertainly from their stations, as though wondering if the man needed treatment for a mental condition.

"Look, as far as I know, our own man is in there too, likely in a similar condition to your own, am I right, Butler?" Angeline spoke up angrily.

All eyes switched to her.

"Mother..." Artemis muttered, half-embarrassed, half-nervous.

"Yes m'am," Butler nodded, fingers twitching into fists and knees lowering his centre of gravity, working out which would be the best position to guard all three Fowls from harm if Carker tried to make a move.

"Do you all know eachother?" the sergeant, who seemed to be going greyer by the minute, asked tiredly. "Because I _really_ don't have the time for this."

"Yes," Angeline Fowl said quickly, before her husband could butt in. "And do you know? I don't think I'll be pressing charges just yet. Would you release him for now and take us both to the people we want to see?"

Butler _almost_ yelped, instead coughing gruffly. He did _not _spend the morning being beaten half to death by the bodyguard of this man to let him walk away without charges now.

"Not now, Butler," Angeline said firmly and the bodyguard bit his tongue as usual.

"Angeline, darling..." Mr. Fowl began.

"No, Timmy. We are both in the same situation here and I must say it is _not_ pleasant. Now, you are both adults and gentlemen," Angeline then said to her husband and her kidnapper. "And I am sure you can _both_ put aside your differences for the meantime."

_Really? _Butler thought. But he stood there silently, almost sulkily. Mrs. Fowl was on a roll. He knew better than to try to stop her.

Carker gaped in amazement as he was un-cuffed by, ironically, the same officer that had been put in charge of Butler earlier.

"If you're _absolutely_ sure, Missus Fowl," the police sergeant said sternly. "But we'll need to take names down first..."

"Could you do that while we wait?"

"Of course, m'am," the man nodded, gesturing two of his best officers to follow the group as hospital staff directed all of them all to a waiting room.

"Both men you are trying to see are still in surgery. I'm afraid you'll have to wait," a hospital steward told them seriously.

"Fine." Carker mumbled.

"It will give us time to talk," Angeline said, staring at her husband with determined eyes.

Mr. Fowl coughed, straightening his singed tie.

The police sergeant marched in before them, sitting down with a notebook and pen.

Mrs. Fowl stopped at the door, still holding onto Artemis Junior and blocking the doorway with the pair of them.

"Now then. Butler? Would you please get your injuries seen to whilst this interview takes place?" she asked, in a way that didn't offer a choice.

Butler scowled. When would people realise, if he needed help, he would get it. But then he noticed the fact that it _had_ actually been a question, rather than a direct order. She was the only Fowl to do that on a regular basis.

"If you're sure, m'am," he said warily. Angeline almost sighed in relief. She had half-expected an argument, having pushed the bodyguard's obedience, and nerves, to the limit already today and they hadn't even had breakfast yet.

"We'll be fine," she assured, her son's hand clamped in hers and a serious look on her face. She looked for all the world like a headmistress with two naughty boys and her star pupil.

Butler had to admit she was probably right. She was heading into a room with two men whose combined muscle-mass barely equalled one of his arms, a police sergeant he was beginning to trust, despite his suspicious nature and another two officers that looked like they could handle themselves at least until he heard any commotion and came running.

"We'll be _fine_," Angeline intoned again. "Now_ go_."

The men in the room looked at her. It wasn't often, but when Angeline Fowl got like she was now, she was quite a frightening woman.

So that was why, finally, Butler sat in a curtained cubical to get his head stitched up, his bones checked and generally cleaned up.

"What in Heaven's name happened to you?" the nurse, an older looking woman with greying hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun on the back of her head, asked her latest patient as she stitched.

Butler didn't answer. So she persisted.

"More to the point, what happened to the other guy?"

That brought a wry smile to even his bust lips.

"I bet he's not walking, anyway," she chuckled. "What was your disagreement about, eh? A girl?"

"No," Butler almost shook his head in amusement, which would have been painful since she was still stitching his brow where Drake's favourite knuckle-dusters had split his skin. "Just a... bit of a bust up."

"Is it sorted now?"

"Probably," Butler said, in the hope that Drake wouldn't make it through surgery and if he did, would decide that it was best of three and Butler had won. The likelihood of that happening? About the same chance as him giving up bodyguarding and pursuing a career as a professional jockey.

"I hope so. I don't like how I end up patching up strapping young lads like yourself more often than you've had hot dinners, my boy. Right, that's you done, sonny. I'll just go get you some painkillers..."

Butler looked at her strangely. He couldn't remember a time in the not-so-distant past that he had been spoken to like that. He was fairly sure the only person ever to call him _'sonny'_ had been an ageing policeman when he had caught him trespassing in a private warehouse. He would have easily avoided the situation had he not been carrying another student of Ko's who had stupidly leapt from a wall and broken his stupid ankle. It had been a stealth exercise of sorts and carrying another eleven year old who had been sobbing loudly had pretty much completely counteracted any advantage his natural affinity with shadows had given him to begin with.

_Yet another example of your perpetual need to protect __people coming in oh-so handy,_ grumbled his sarcastic sense of humour.

And as for the _'strapping young lad'_ comment, the last person who had referred to him as... one of those... had been a teacher at the school he had partially attended whilst not away training at the academy. And that hadn't exactly been an appropriate comment at the time...

_Enough said on that one.._.

"Right, here you are sweetheart," said the nurse, returning back to the curtained booth and holding out a small pot of tablets. "You'd best take two now, then another two in four hours and no more than eight a day, got it?"

"Yup," Butler said, pocketing the pills.

"What is it with lads like you thinking you're too tough for painkillers?"

"Do they affect driving?" Butler asked seriously.

"What did you say your name was?" the nurse sighed.

"I didn't."

"Well?"

Butler looked at the motherly-looking woman. She was halfway between Madam Ko and a mother hen. But that still didn't mean he was going to say 'Dom'.

"Stefan," he muttered, for once feeling oddly guilty for lying.

"Well Stefan, my name is Margaret and I'm only going to ask you once more. Now take the tablets. Please."

Knowing she wouldn't let him go easily if he didn't, and the quickest way to get back to the Fowls was to obey, he sighed. "Alright."

"Good boy," she smiled kindly and handed him a plastic cup of water.

Once he had swallowed the painkillers and been allowed on his way, Butler made straight for the waiting room. He didn't have any spare clothes and wasn't willing to borrow far-too-small hospital scrubs so had to stay in his bloodied jumper. The state of it didn't bother him other than it was starting to draw attention and he got enough of that as it was. He'd worn plenty worse for longer before now.

By the time he got back, looking slightly more presentable, a doctor was talking to the Fowls and Carker as though they were the best of friends concerned about eachother's hurt family member. And it was fair to say, it seemed they actually were. Whatever Angeline had said, it had worked. Carker stood awkwardly to one side as Butler entered.

"I...ah... I apologise for the trouble I have caused you and your family and employers," he said quietly, turning red. "And I promise to ensure Drake, if... _when _he recovers, feels the same."

Butler tried not to look as unconvinced as he felt.

"So long as you agree to leave us alone too," Carker added hurriedly.

Butler nodded slowly. Sounded OK to him. "Agreed. But if you ever threaten us again, don't expect me to hold up my side of the deal."

Carker laughed nervously. "I assure you, Artemis and I have sorted out our... ah issues."

It was true. For the return of half of the money he been cheated out of, Carker had agreed to drop any charges on his side. For the affirmation that Carker would leave his family alone and the assurance that Drake would do the same, Fowl had also agreed not to prosecute. Butler could only try to fathom the workings of the minds he was employed to protect, but in any case, so long as their safety was ensured, he could live with the consequences.

"I'm afraid I entirely overacted over something as... as meaningless as money and pride. And in doing so I have put a great many people in danger," Carker continued. "For that I apologise greatly. And I hope... well I hope that you may forgive me."

Butler didn't answer, but Carker hadn't been expecting him to. As it turned out, no-one had been killed in the shooting. When told later, The Major would simply shrug and admit that he hadn't been going for kill shots anyway. The murder-charges were too tedious.

For Carker, it had been quite a blow to almost lose Drake and the whole experience seemed to have shifted his perspective somewhat. And once Angeline had begun reprimanding both him and her husband, James had wondered whether it was time to slow down and enjoy life a little more. Maybe find a wife with morals like hers to keep him in line. It would certainly give Drake a break, and Lord knew the man deserved it.

"Very good," Angeline said happily. "Now, I think they said we can visit The Major and... Drake, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Are they... um... near eachother?" Carker asked meekly.

"Right next to eachother," the hospital man said. "We figured you'd want them to be, being involved in the same accident and all."

Everyone looked at eachother, wondering how much the hospital steward had been told about the 'accident'. More than one of them laughed. Considering that they were both entirely responsible for the injuries that had landed them both in hospital beds, it was unlikely that either The Major or Drake would appreciate the gesture.

After a short walk, which Butler committed to memory as they went, they discovered that when the man said 'next to eachother', he did literally mean adjacent rooms. The two parties separated at the doors, both filled with apprehension at the sight of their corresponding bodyguards through the small rectangular windows cut into the doors. Machines whirred and beeped in both, conversely assuring that the patients were alive, and warning that that could change at any minute.

"Artemis?" Carked started, hand on the door-handle.

"James?"

"Back in the lift... you mentioned a partnership..."

"Yes?" Artemis raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"If the offer still stands, I think I'm ready to consider it."

After a moment, Artemis nodded, still not completely forgiving of the man that had kidnapped his family and threatened his life. But his wife was more forgiving. And right now he had made a promise to do anything to keep her happy.

"I'll discuss it with you, James," he said. It would certainly be an asset to have Carker on his side, rather than as an enemy.

_Although I'm certain we__ will be hard-pushed to convince our bodyguards to see it that way._

With that thought, Artemis Fowl Senior took a breath and opened the door slowly.

When they entered the room The Major didn't move. He was asleep. Apparently the surgeon had listened to Butler's suggestion after all.

An IV drip snaked from a bag into the back of one hand and his chest rose and fell tranquilly. A complete contrast to just a few hours previous.

Flashing images of the chaos glared in Butler's vision for a moment and he shook them off, pulling up the three chairs so that the Fowls could sit next to the bed and took up a post by the door.

"Oh lord... Major," Artemis whispered, touching the man's wrist. He didn't stir. "The things you do for me, old friend."

It was the most peaceful that the majority of the room had ever seen The Major and although it served partly as a comfort that the man was not in pain, it also brought a shiver of unease to the hearts of the Fowls to realise he was in no position to leap up and protect them at any moment. Only his junior stood at the door settled their fears and allowed them to find the good side to The Major's resting.

They sat in awkward silence for a few minuets until Little Artemis stifled a yawn and Artemis Senior realised that both he and Angeline had had little sleep, if any overnight whilst he had slept quite fairly in the hospital bed. The memory of the night sparked a thought and for a second Artemis nearly spoke aloud to ask The Major to remind him of something later. Shaking his head slightly at his stupidity, he took out his phone and made a note of the idea before he spoke to his family.

"Well, there's nothing we really do here but sit and watch him sleep and I dare say that if I were to wake up to find people staring at me I would be quite unsettled by the thought that they had been there without my knowledge for an unknown time and I expect that Major will certainly feel the same. Besides, I expect you two will be wanting to clean up and do some sleeping of your own, am I right, my darlings?"

Artemis Junior raised an eyebrow at being referred to as a 'darling' but he smiled softly. His father stood and, in a rare moment of fatherliness, lifted him out of his chair and held him to his hip with one arm (albeit with some difficulty), taking the hand of his wife with the other.

"Butler, we'll be leaving now," he said, then paused. "If you would like to spend a few moments alone..."

"I'm quite alright thank-you, sir," Butler said gruffly.

Artemis looked a little saddened, so Butler decided that this was an ideal time to exercise his usually restrained sense of humour.

"Besides, he'd kill me if I stood around watching him sleep instead of getting you three home safely."

Artemis Senior laughed slightly and Butler let them out of the room, closing the door on the sleeping form of his uncle. He'd be back soon enough, no doubt. Juliet would see to that.

At the foyer, Butler rang a taxi for them and kept a close eye on their surroundings as they waited. The painkillers were not quite doing their job, or else the dosage hadn't been high enough for his bulk. His head pounded and he wanted to get back to the Manor as soon as possible. At least there could relax slightly in the knowledge that he was not solely responsible for the safety of the entire Fowl family as he was now. Although sleep was almost certainly out of the question for the rest of today's daylight hours.

Artemis Junior, now back on his own two feet, shivered in a morning breeze that swept plastic cups and bags across the carpark, trapping them under wheels. Butler moved to a position that would better shield him from the wind.

"_Brrr_ indeed," Artemis Senior chuckled, taking off his jacket and draping it over his wife's cold shoulders, placing his hands on his son's comfortingly. "Now I fully remember why we prefer to use private transport, eh?"

The other two nodded in agreement.

"On that matter, where is the car, Butler? Back at the restaurant?"

Mrs. Fowl shot the bodyguard a look, an apologetic smile creeping onto her face. As far as she was concerned it was still crashed on the front lawn of the police station.

"Not as such, sir," Butler answered tiredly, remembering with a silent groan of dread, the state and location of his uncle's precious Bentley.

* * *

><p><strong>Well, that's pretty much it folks! Just the last chapterepilogue to go!**

**Yeah, it could have been 2 separate chapters but it didn't feel right to cut it anywhere and besides, you wanted to know what happened, didn't you?**

**Thanks for sticking with me this far. I haven't asked for reviews once this time round, yet you awesome people have given me an average of a review for every thousand words so far. And since many of these chapters I _really_ could/should have chopped into more as they were so long, that works out as a hell of a lot of reviews, so THANKSHU!**

**Anyone else doing what I like to call 'silent reading', this is ya last chance to get your name up on the thanks list haha :)**

**Only kidding, I am a serial silent reader myself, I just hope, whether I got to know about it or not, you all enjoyed this so far.**

**Still, one more chappie to go, so feel free to stick around for the ta-da! :)**

**Wolfy  
>ooo<br>O **


	13. Tying Up Loose Ends

**Not much to say except:**

**Thanks to: ****tech17, TearBear3695, Water Flareon and The-Right-Girl, for adding this story to your alerts.**

**Thanks to: ****Beckett Simpleton, KKCopper, HolidayBoredom, ****TearBear3695, Steinbock and 2whitie, for faving this story.**

**And finally, Thanks to:**

***HolidayBoredom***

***Alchemechanist***

***KKCopper***

** *Steinbock***

***Beckett Simpleton***

***2whitie***

***tech17***

***Shadow Huntress***

***Q the omnipotent night fury***

*** Iris Hollandica ***

*** TearBear3695 ***

_**... for your brilliant reviews! :)**_

**For the last time in this fic, Onwards! :)**

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Tying Up Loose Ends<strong>

As the taxi drew up to the grand iron-wrought gates of Fowl Manor, Butler was forced to urge his battered mobile into use once again to ring Juliet, since Harvey from security was refusing to let them in without her confirmation. Butler, although glad they were being so security concious for once, thought it said something about the man that he allowed himself to be bossed about by a pre-teen girl. But then again, the niece and little sister of Blue Diamonds was not your ordinary pre-teen girl.

"Is it_ really_ you though?"

"Yes, Jules."

"Because I only see five heat signatures in the car and unless you _stole_ the taxi, which, knowing you guys..."

"Uncle's still at the hospital."

"What? Is he ok? No, wait. You still have to answer the question."

"Yes?"

"What's our middle name?"

"Yours?"

"Ours."

"Juliet..." Butler warned.

"Say it!"

"Sashca," her brother muttered.

"OK," Juliet said. "You can let them in..."

"Who's Sashca?" Little Artemis asked as the gates opened.

"Not who," Butler explained over his shoulder. "_What. _It was the cue word - the answer to the security question. Which I will now have to change."

"Oh, I see. Very clever," Mr. Fowl said approvingly. He was often surprised by the lengths the Butlers went to to keep them safe, and this was just another one for the list.

"Simple, really, Father," Artemis Junior said. "An elementary security protocol any good security team would put in place to avoid letting imposters into the grounds by mistake. Simple, but perhaps brilliant."

"Of course it is my little genius," Artemis Senior ruffled his son's hair. Angeline beamed at the father-son interaction she knew her little boy longed, but dare not ask, for.

Butler watched the exchange in the review mirror with a small smile on his face. Moments like this were few and far between nowadays and he had a feeling that one day Artemis Senior would regret that.

The gates opened and after the long driveway, the taxi pulled up at the front house. As Butler paid the driver it suddenly clicked in his bashed cranium where he recognised the man from and he half-felt sorry for not realising earlier. The journey could have been much more amusing. Then again, he was thankful enough that the driver had got them back safe with the perils of the road to watch out for. The story might have been different if he'd realised he had a peril in the cab to be wary of too.

"Hey, don't I know you?" the taxi-driver asked as he took the money.

Butler looked at him and grinned the sort of grin a shark would give a swimmer and the man shivered at the memory of the the truth behind the story he told his children about one dark night when he had given a vampire a lift and met twin Frankenstein monsters.

"I doubt it," the bodyguard said, indicating the driver should move on without another word. He did so, a little speedily, flicking up gravel into the grass that would play havoc with the lawnmowers later. Butler watched until the gates close behind the car, then turned back to the manor just in time to see Juliet thundering down the front steps towards him with all of her usual lack of decorum.

She leapt from a ridiculously high step and landed on the gravel, tripping in typical _'almost-got-it-right-this-time'_ Juliet fashion. Butlers reactions, although dimmed by fatigue, were still fast enough to perform his big-brotherly duties and he dropped to his knees, catching her before she face-planted on the ground.

"Woah," he said as he steadied her. "Chill out."

"Are you OK?" she panted.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She hugged him hard, snuggling into his bloodied jumper and scrubbing her hand over the stubble that was starting to grow in on his head and face. He stood up and scrubbed the gravel-muck off the knees of his jeans - not that it made much of a difference.

"Good. Now can we go and see Uncle?"

"Blimin' heck Jules," Butler laughed, spinning her round with a hand on the top of her head and walking up the stairs behind the Fowls. "Give me half a break, will you? I've only just got back."

"You're both free to visit the hospital whenever you like until The Major returns," Mr. Fowl told them as he and the others made their way into the manor.

"Thank-you Mister Fowl, sir," Juliet piped politely.

"It's the least I can do, Juliet," he said, with more warmth than he had deemed to use on anyone other than his wife and son for a long time.

The staff welcomed their employers and Harvey from security gave Butler a nod which was returned in thanks for not allowing the manor to explode during the rare absence of Blue Diamonds. Others stared where Juliet had not batted and eyelid, the state of the attire of the returners, the blood, the bruises, the stitched. Butler wondered if it was a _bad_ thing that his sister hadn't seemed to think any of the above had been serious enough to worry about. But no, she was a Butler and to worry about a few scrapes was a waste of space in her head that could be used for thinking about other things. For Juliet, those other things were already starting to take on a bodyguarding theme.

"How'd you get on with that Beretta?" he asked her.

"Uh..." Juliet clasped her hands together and swung her arms guiltily.

_"Juliet..."_ her brother growled. "If I have to pay for another plasterer, it is coming out of _your_ pocket money, little miss."

"Don't call me that," Juliet pouted. "And I didn't blow up nothing!"

_Double negative,_ Butler thought. _Hopefully accidental._

"But...?" he asked aloud.

"But I decided to use the Sig Sauer instead," she mumbled. "I know uncle _said_ to use the Beretta but I like the Sig better and you guys have them so..."

"Did you shoot it?" Butler skipped to the important part.

"Nope. Didn't need to."

"Good," Butler said with an undertone of relief.

"Then will you teach me how to shoot it properly so Uncle'll let me use it?" she asked hopefully.

"Alright," her brother smiled. It could never be a bad thing to have his little sister to know how to use a gun. Or at least not if she knew how to use a gun _correctly_.

"Now?" she said excitedly and he could tell she was already mentally upstairs, retrieving the precious weapon from under her pillow.

"Later, OK?" he said tiredly.

"Oh yeah," Juliet said, slapping her head as though she had forgotten something. "After we go see Uncle, right?"

"Do I get to get a shower first?" Butler muttered.

Juliet considered him critically, head on one side. "Well, you do smell a bit."

"That's a yes, I take it."

* * *

><p>The two Butlers walked down the hospital corridor. Despite the size and age difference, it was clear that they were family. They both had the same look about them. Not shifty, not nervous, but hyper-alert. Any squeak of shoe, any clink of change in a pocket and their heads turned in unison. Juliet would learn in the future that if her partnering guard looked at something, she should look anywhere else <em>but<em> there. Not only to reduce suspicion, but to ensure that they were not caught out by a distraction. As it was, the elder Butler was functioning as if he was guarding his little sister, but having her copy his every move was more endearing than annoying.

"**Will Uncle be awake, brother?**" Juliet meant to say in Russian. They had signed in at the desk and she was playing the little sister of Stefan Bashkir. She thought the whole thing was brilliant. Butler just hoped that the hospital hadn't found a Russian translator. If they had, 'Sascha Bashkir' would just have to pretend to be extremely shy, or a mute. Her Russian wasn't _quite_ up to scratch.

"You just said _'will aunt be asleep, mother?'_," her brother muttered in English.

"Well I tried," she humphed.

"You'll get better at it. And I don't know."

"What about the guy you battered?"

"Jules..." Butler warned, cautious of being overheard.

"**What... the man you... hit?**" she said in broken Russian.

Butler snorted. If he was honest, no-one would be listening to them anyway. He resorted to their native language, knowing she would never be able to translate what he said. "I didn't batter him, Jules, if anything, it was mutual battering."

"Arty said you battered him."

"Really?"

"Well no, but he _did _say that you _'dealt with him'_, which I think in Arty-ish means that you beat the shi..."

"Juliet!" Butler warned. "Yes, I knocked him out once but if it wasn't for uncle he'd have blown my brains out on the floor."

"Somebody beat _you_?"

Something buried not-so deep within Butler snarled furiously at that. Especially at the accusation of his _little sister_.

_No,_ it growled. _He. Didn't. Win. Nobody wins._

"Not if you count me coming out alive as being beat."

"Then no," she said simply. "Good. Because no-one beats my big brother up or _I_ beat _them _up."

Butler shook his head and laughed. "Well then he's in there - look."

Juliet peeked through the window and waved brightly at Carker, who looked at her, thoroughly confused.

"Well he looks pretty well duffed up to me."

"Well then you can congratulate uncle for that. He's the reason that guy's chest looks like a sieve."

The pair entered the room to find their uncle asleep. At least he was, until the door creaked and he practically leapt out of the bed, wincing at the pain it caused his stitches.

"Hey Uncle," Juliet said, jumping onto the end of the bed. "Ya pleased to see me?"

The Major grunted non-committally, sitting up slower and more gingerly. Despite the twinge to his abdomen, he felt better much then yesterday already. Butler had managed to convince his sister to wait a _whole day_ before dragging him back to the hospital to visit their uncle, so the man had had a fair night's sleep and was already pestering to go home as soon as possible - much to the nurses' disapproval.

"How are you?" Juliet persisted. "Dom said that the guy next door is your fault."

"_Juliet,_" Butler groaned, for more than one reason, locking the door and pulling over a chair to sit by the bed.

"What?" she asked innocently.

Butler sighed, holding up a finger. "Number one, the name thing."

"No one's _here,_" she rolled her eyes.

"Still young lady, it pays to get into the habit," The Major said sternly. "How are the Fowls? Artemis?"

"All fine. I bumped into him on the way out, actually. He was in here but only overnight. He's been to see you and sends his best."

The Major nodded, seeming pleased, but more likely it was about the safety of his charge than his well-wishes.

"Now, what's this about the man next door. It's not Drake, is it?" he barked a laugh.

_Ah shit. OK, that one's my fault, _Butler thought. He should have warned Juliet to keep her mouth shut.

"Erm..."

"Boy?" The Major growled, repeating the question. "It's not Drake,_ is it?_"

"Well... yes, actually," his nephew admitted sheepishly.

"_What?_"

"Don't worry about it..."

"Huh. Like I'd be _worried _about that complete..." The Major interrupted irritatedly.

Butler butted back in,"I don't know what Missus Fowl did, but Carker and Artemis are on speaking terms and well, they promise not to kill or steal off eachother for the foreseeable future."

"Huh," The Major repeated. "I'll believe_ that_ when I see it."

"That's what I thought," Butler said. "But they seem to mean it. Besides, Drake's not going anywhere for a while and Carker was practically in tears when he thought he was dead. I'm pretty sure he'll drop the issue."

"Just a shame he_ isn't_..." The Major muttered. "How am I supposed to sleep now knowing he's next door?"

"I wasn't expecting you to have to sleep in here more than a few nights," Butler smirked.

"Shut your trap. It doesn't look like I have much of a choice if I want my insides to stay just that," The Major grumbled. "You haven't got a spare gun you could leave with me, have you?"

"I don't think the docs will take kindly to that."

"Sorry Uncle," Juliet grinned. "But you could take him on barehanded any day. Even with your stomach hanging out. Hey - can I see your stitches? Dom showed me his on his arm and I reckon you did a good job. They're not yellow or pussing out or anything. Can I see yours? Can I?"

The Major sighed exasperatedly. "If you must."

"Cool!"

The little family sat and spoke for a while, until finally a beeper on the middle Butlers' watch went off.

"Right, time to go."

"Wait a minute, where _are_ the Fowls?" The Major said, guilty for not asking earlier. He _had_ asked if they were safe, just not of their whereabouts.

"Home. Security's watching them," Butler told him, a little reluctantly.

"Good Lord boy, what have I told you about that team?"

"They do their best Uncle," Juliet piped up. "It's not their fault they ain't Butlers."

"Even so. You better get back to them before..."

"They blow up the manor or something?" Juliet grinned.

"Something like that," The Major said. He sounded annoyed, but his mouth twitched in a smirk.

"See you tomorrow, Uncle," Juliet said, hugging him. She kissed his forehead, then polished it with her sleeve and laughed at his sigh of annoyance.

"See you tomorrow," Butler nodded, not repeating the whole 'hugging' gesture.

"Yes, when hopefully they'll let me out of here with some painkillers," The Major muttered. "Maybe I'll have to prove to them I'm fine by accidently killing my neighbour."

The three laughed and Juliet unlocked and opened the door,checking the corridor for threats _almost_ perfectly.

"Not bad, but if there had been a man opposite he'd have had your head off," The Major pointed out. "Check through the window first next time."

Juliet growled in annoyance, but repeated the exercise and grinned at the following praise.

"Well done," The Major nodded. "Oh and boy?"

Butler was beginning to think that he might as well just start calling himself _'boy'_, but he knew it was only The Major's way of calling him something other than 'Dom' with being so formal as to call him 'Butler'.

"You see that my car gets seen to."

"Yes uncle," Butler rolled his eyes. "She's in the garage as we speak. And I got all your gear back off the police too."

"Good lad," The Major said, settling back down.

Butler watched him from the door. His uncle deserved a break. Just a shame it had to be under life threatening circumstances before the man was forced to admit he could do with a lie down.

_Hypocrite,_ he knew The Major would say.

And so, as he and Juliet headed back to Fowl Manor, Butler could muster a smile on his face.

Considering the last 48 hours, things could be a whole lot worse.

* * *

><p><strong>THE PROPER EPILOGUE<strong>

In the next few months several things happened.

Both The Major and Drake made full recoveries - much to eachother's chagrin.

Artemis Fowl Senior and James Carker set up a small corporation together valuing diamonds. They never met face to face, dealing with their issues entirely electronically to avoid any serious arguments... or the rematch their bodyguards were itching for an excuse for. They returned _most _of the originals that came in... but criminality proved harder to shake than Angeline had hoped and a few owners were sent home with nothing more than identical copies of their evaluated stones with less than a tenth of their worth. But it was a start.

Mickey and Travis both recovered, the former giving the latter a stern and well-earned _'I told you so'_. They mutually decided that dealings with powerful criminals was more out of their league than they had originally thought and took up jobs at the same nightclub as doormen, giving Travis the ideal opportunity to work on his manners and Mickey a job where others could help to make sure his unruly brother stayed in line.

The paramedic and the nurse that were brave enough to treat the Butlers went on with their jobs. Dan saving countless more lives as the years went by and Margaret patching up yet more 'strapping young lads' because, well, boys will be boys.

And, showing a side of him that would eventually win true in the future, a certain crimelord sent a letter to the owner of one 'Skylight Restaurant' with a cheque for its complete rebuild. Under one condition - there was to be a break room built in for the staff that could be described as a small-scale casino. And the owner was to tell a certain moustachioed waiter that a man named 'Tim' sent his best regards.

A donation was also sent to the police station with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates thanking them for their help and enclosing enough money for a new garden design to replace the one the Bentley had ploughed through.

And as for the car, by the time The Major returned from hospital a week later, it was standing proudly and completely in its rightful place in Fowl Manor's garage. Butler had paid for it to be repaired at a ridiculous speed and quality - costing a hefty chunk of his salary - but it was worth it.

"Seems you own most of her now," The Major joked, inspecting the panel repairs and nodding approvingly at the handiwork.

Butler grunted, not looking up from the workbench where he was meticulously cleaning the Sig Sauer that Juliet had been learning to use earlier that day.

"You can pay me back if you want."

"No thanks, m'boy," The Major laughed. "But I tell you what, when you finally do get rid of me for good, you can have her."

"Then I don't want it until it's a flippin' rust bucket that won't move," Butler said seriously, scowling and glancing over for the response.

"She," The Major amended. "The car's a she."

And although that was all that was said on the matter and The Major left soon after to catch up on his security checks, clapping his nephew on the shoulder on the way out, both were glad that day hadn't come yet.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Well, alls well that ends well, or something along those lines... although that wouldn't fit in the chapter title box so I had to think up something else... ah well :D<strong>**

**I know it was short but hopefully it's tied up all the loose ends but if I've missed anyone please let me know and I'll let you know basically :)**

**Kinda a bit of *shameless-self-advertising-alert* going on in this chappie. As in the Sascha thing came from one of my stories (kinda a crack-fic compared to what I normally do but ho-hum).**

**And also, the ending is kinda hinting at what I hope to write my next big fic on, although it's like feast or famine with me so it could a while before my next one finds it's way onto FanFic.**

**So far I have the ideas, it's just going to take a bit to get them all down for other people to look at. I can only promise I'll start writing it and then you'll probably get the entire thing over the duration of a week in about 6- 12 months time... that'll have to do. Most of you know what I'm like.**

**All I can say now is thanks to everyone for all the reviews, favs, adds etc of both this fic and me and THANKSHU all the amazing praise, enthusiasm and encouragement that came with them.**

**For all of that, Thank You.**

**I'm gonna miss having my inbox filled with reviews and everything...**

**Until next time,**

**Wolfy**  
><strong>ooo<strong>  
><strong> O<strong>


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